He last played a Test match in 2017.
Veteran spinner Liam Dawson is set join the top 10 list of players with longest gap between Test appearances should he play the fourth Test against India that starts from July 23 at Manchester’s Old Trafford.
Dawson returns to the England Test side for the first time since 2017. He last played a Test for England in July 2017 against South Africa. Dawson replaces the injured spinner Shoaib Bashir in the England squad, with the latter being ruled out of the rest of the Test series against India due to a finger injury.
Former England spinner Gareth Batty leads the list of players with longest gap between Test appearances, having missed 142 Tests between 2005 and 2016. Gareth Batty last featured in the England Test playing XI during an away series against India in 2016. That series also happened to be the same series wherein Liam Dawson made his Test debut.
Karun Nair slammed a triple century during the Chennai Test against England in 2016, which was Dawson’s Test debut. Interestingly, even Karun Nair made a return to the India Test side after eight years recently.
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Prior to featuring in the first Test against England in June, Karun had played a Test for India in March 2017 against Australia. He features in 22nd place in the list, returning to the Test playing XI after eight years and 90 days and having missed 77 Tests. Two other Indians, Jaydev Unadkat and Dinesh Karthik, however, feature in the top 10 players of the said list.
Should Dawson not feature for England in the fourth Test against India but play the fifth Test, he will go level with Derek Shackleton in joint-third as far as England players are concerned, and joint-sixth player overall.
Players With Longest Gap Between Test Appearances
| Player | Team | From | To | Time span | No. of Tests missed |
| Gareth Batty | England | June 5, 2005 | October 20, 2016 | 11 years 137 days | 142 |
| Jaydev Unadkat | India | December 20, 2010 | December 22, 2022 | 12 years 2 days | 118 |
| Martin Bicknell | England | August 9, 1993 | August 21, 2003 | 10 years 12 days | 114 |
| Floyd Reifer | West Indies | January 18, 1999 | July 9, 2009 | 10 years 172 days | 109 |
| Younis Ahmed | Pakistan | November 2, 1969 | February 21, 1987 | 17 years 111 days | 104 |
| Derek Shackleton | England | November 7, 1951 | June 20, 1963 | 11 years 225 days | 103 |
| Liam Dawson* | England | July 17, 2017 | July 22, 2025 | 8 years 5 days | 102* |
| Les Jackson | England | July 26, 1949 | July 6, 1961 | 11 years 345 days | 96 |
| Fawad Alam | Pakistan | November 28, 2009 | August 13, 2020 | 10 years 259 days | 88 |
| Dinesh Karthik | India | January 21, 2010 | June 14, 2018 | 8 years 144 days | 87 |
After their series-levelling win at Edgbaston in the second Test, India went down to England by 22 runs in the third Test at Lord’s. The visitors were set a target of 193, but were bundled out for 170 with all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja’s (61*) fighting knock going in vain.
India will look to level the five-match series when the fourth Test gets underway in Manchester from July 23.
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