UNCAPPED Tom Curran has been added to England's Ashes squad after Steven Finn was ruled out of the tour.

Finn, himself a late replacement for the absent Ben Stokes, has been diagnosed with torn cartilage in his left knee and heads back to England for a possible operation.

Curran is next in line and the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced he will fly to Australia tomorrow.

The Surrey seamer revealed he was dozing when the career-changing news came his way.

Curran said: "I saw a couple of missed calls when I woke up, so I've just heard the news and I'm very excited.

"I'm very proud, very humbled. It's been a rollercoaster, a year I'll never forget."

Curran has long been considered a rising star of the county game and made his first steps into international cricket this summer, appearing in three T20s and a one-day international against the West Indies.

He took 24 wickets in Division One of the County Championship at 34.66 as well as averaging a handy 27.44 with the bat.

Liam Plunkett, a mainstay of the white-ball set-up but not seen in the Test arena since winning the last of his 13 caps in 2014, and Mark Wood, set to travel Down Under with the Lions as he battles back from a heel injury, were other viable options.

Curran will link up with the side in Adelaide, where Joe Root's team are facing a Cricket Australia XI from tomorrow.

Moeen Ali will play no part in that as he recovers from a minor side injury and the all-rounder trained alone on the eve of the day-night match. He remains on course to be fit in time for the opening Test in Brisbane.

A brief ECB statement on Finn read: "(He) will miss the remainder of (the) tour of Australia after scans revealed that he has a torn left knee cartilage.

"The Middlesex seamer sustained the injury during practice last week in Perth and will now return to the UK, where he will meet a knee specialist to ascertain whether he will have an operation."

It is a cruel blow for Finn, on his third Ashes tour but having been dropped midway through England's famous 2010/11 series victory and never picked four years ago before then being described as "unselectable" by limited-overs coach Ashley Giles.

Coach Trevor Bayliss has indicated another significant decision is in the offing too, after he and Joe Root got their heads together to work out who should replace Stokes as tour vice-captain.

''Rooty and I have had a bit of a chat about it over the last few days and you'll probably see an announcement in the next day or two,'' he said.

''Personally, I wasn't necessarily concerned about naming one.

''There's probably three or four guys in the team that could do it – older guys who play that role anyway as leaders of the team.''

One such, Stuart Broad, said: ''I don't see the vice-captaincy as a particularly important role in cricket really.

"The vice-captain literally takes over if the captain runs off the field and needs the toilet."