England have kept faith with several of their World Cup failures for next month’s white-ball series in the West Indies.
Six players in the squad that ended the tournament in India in seventh place will be in the Caribbean for a three-match ODI series that starts in Antigua on 3 December.
Captain Jos Buttler, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse are part of a refreshed squad that features teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Phil Salt, Ollie Pope, left-arm spinner Tom Hartley, plus uncapped ODI fast bowlers Josh Tongue and John Turner.
Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Mark Wood and Ben Stokes, who is undergoing knee surgery on his return home this week, have all been rested ahead of the five-Test series in India in the New Year.
Rob Key, England’s managing director of men’s cricket, has confirmed all have a future in one-day cricket, although Stokes, England’s Test captain, admitted he might step down after he unretired from the format to play in the World Cup.
It means Dawid Malan, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid have all been dropped from the one-day set-up, while Reece Topley is still recovering from the fractured finger that ruled him out four games into the World Cup.
Malan has also been dropped from the T20 squad that will play five T20s in the West Indies after the one-dayers, leaving the 36-year-old who has just signed a one-year England deal out in the international wilderness.
Moeen, Rashid, Woakes and Topley are all in a 16-man squad for the T20s that will be played in Barbados, Grenada and Trinidad and will be crucial preparation for next year’s World Cup in the format in the Caribbean and USA.
England squads for West Indies 2023 tour
ODI squad:
- JC Buttler (captain)
- R Ahmed
- AP Atkinson
- HC Brook
- BA Carse
- Z Crawley
- SM Curran
- BM Duckett
- TW Hartley
- WG Jacks
- LS Livingstone
- OJD Pope
- PD Salt
- JC Tongue
- JA Turner
T20 squad:
- JC Buttler (captain)
- R Ahmed
- MM Ali
- AP Atkinson
- HC Brook
- SM Curran
- BM Duckett
- WG Jacks
- LS Livingstone
- TS Mills
- AU Rashid
- PD Salt
- JC Tongue
- RJW Topley
- JA Turner
- CR Woakes
Jacks, who looks likely to be given the chance to open in both white-ball formats in the West Indies, Ahmed, Duckett, Atkinson, and Turner are all fresh faces who were not involved in England’s T20 World Cup win in Australia last winter.
Topley and Tymal Mills missed that tournament through injury but both left-arm bowlers are included for the Caribbean T20s as England ramp up their preparations for the defence of that title in June.
Key, who has backed under-fire white-ball coach Matthew Mott to continue in his job, admitted there will be lessons to learn from the debacle in India when it comes to defending their remaining world title next summer.
“We’ve just got to make sure we don’t make the same fundamental errors we’ve done through this,” he said. “You know, commit to the style and the way in which we want to play, make sure we make decisions right.”
