John Crawley has described his omission from the England squad for last week's first Test against Zimbabwe as the worst moment of his career.

Hampshire captain Crawley, 31, was replaced by Robert Key despite averaging 40.50 during the Ashes series and now faces a battle to win back his place just one year breaking back into the Test after an absence of three years.

He said: "It was a huge disappointment and I'm still pretty bewildered and amazed by the whole thing, to be honest.

"I did have chats with some of the selectors beforehand and they gave me the odd reason but nobody has spoken to me since the selection has been made.

"The reasons that they were putting forward beforehand were not really satisfactory from my point of view.

"In the last eight Test matches since coming back into the side, I played a big part in two of England's wins at the time, helped to save the game against Sri Lanka at Lord's, and averaged 47 plus.

"I didn't really light up any bonfires in the winter, but there were a lot of other batsmen who didn't and I can take a lot of credit from the fact that I can look myself in the mirror and tell myself honestly that I have fought as hard as I possibly could for England.

"To be dropped after that, for not really any reason as far as I can see, is by far and away the most utterly disappointing thing that has happened to me in my cricket career."

Chairman of selectors David Graveney insisted that Crawley's Test career was far from over after the squad was announced.

And with England due to travel to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka later this year, Crawley's ability against spin will certainly help his chances of adding to his 37 caps.

Crawley,who is averaging 42.42 in the Championship this season after five matches, added: "As the season goes on the pressure will be on the selectors to include more young faces in the side and I think they probably will.

"So I will just have to perform and score double hundreds on more than one occasion."

Dravid aims for spectacular return against Hampshire after rest: See Page 60.