LONDON, Sept 28: England selectors pulled off a surprise by calling up inexperienced batsman Robert Key as Graham Thorpe’s replacement for next month’s tour of Australia Saturday.

The Kent opener was named after Thorpe, a middle-order batsman, completed a U-turn and pulled out of the tour due to personal problems.

Key was picked ahead of Mark Ramprakash, long seen as a fine technician but a regular underachiever at international level.

Revised squad: Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Robert Key, Mark Butcher, Nasser Hussain (captain), John Crawley, Alec Stewart, James Foster, Andrew Flintoff, Darren Gough, Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones, Steve Harmison, Ashley Giles, Richard Dawson.—Reuters