England ditch familiar names for West Indies after World Cup woe
Jos Buttler men’s won just three games and failed to reach the semi-finals at World Cup
Kolkata: England announced on Sunday a squad for next month’s One Day International series in the Caribbean featuring just six survivors from their woeful World Cup defence in India.
Jos Buttler men’s won just three games and failed to reach the semi-finals.
Nevertheless Buttler remains captain for the tour which sees three ODIs and five Twenty20s.
Promising batsman Harry Brook, all-rounder Liam Livingstone as well as pacemen Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse and Sam Curran are the other World Cup survivors.
Multi-format regulars Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Mark Wood have been rested ahead of January’s Test series in India, with red-ball captain Ben Stokes heading straight for surgery on a long-standing knee injury.
But the decision to leave out batsman Dawid Malan, all-rounder Moeen Ali and seamer Chris Woakes could signal the end of the trio’s ODI careers.
Lacked knowledge
Meanwhile, England cricket director Rob Key on Sunday surveyed the wreckage of the World Cup and admitted: “I look at what I’ve not done rather than blaming everyone else.”
Key attempted to take the pressure off under-fire Australian white-ball coach Matthew Mott by explaining the Test side had been the priority during his 18 months in charge.
“Every single time a decision has been made around whether or not we focus on 50-over cricket, Test cricket or T20, I’ve always chosen Test cricket,” Key told travelling English media in Kolkata.
He added it was his fault the coaching staff lacked knowledge of Indian conditions, as he refected on Buttler’s decision to field first in the energy-sapping heat and humidity of Mumbai only for South Africa to pile up 399.
“I set up a coaching team that had no local experience really,” he said.
“When you get to somewhere like Mumbai — and it all seems so simple now — you’re worried about dew and all of this other stuff.
“But someone who knows these conditions really well would say ‘it’s hotter than the sun out there; make sure you have a bat’ ... We should have known this but we didn’t going into the competition.”
England ODI squad for West Indies tour:
Jos Buttler (capt/wkt), Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Ben Duckett, Tom Hartley, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Ollie Pope, Phil Salt, Josh Tongue, John Turner.
T20 squad
Buttler (capt/wkt), Ahmed, Moeen Ali, Atkinson, Brook, Curran, Duckett, Jacks, Livingstone, Tymal Mills, Adil Rashid, Salt, Tongue, Reece Topley, Turner, Chris Woakes.