England have announced a 14-man squad for their upcoming three-match T20 series against Pakistan. None of the players engaged in the ongoing Test series has been included as the national selector Ed Smith emphasised giving much-needed rest to the multi-format players.
“In this crowded international summer, players who are currently in the Test match biosecure bubble for the Pakistan Test series are not included in this squad,” asserted Smith.
“We want to give multi-format players some opportunity to rest and refresh, while still selecting strong squads for every series. We will announce the squad for the Australia T20 series at a later date,” he added.
The first T20I will commence on August 28 while the next two will be taking place on August 30 and September 1 respectively at the Old Trafford in Manchester.
David Malan and Chris Jordan, who earlier missed the ODI series against Ireland due to injury, will be desperate to make a comeback for England in this series.
Malan, while playing for Yorkshire, scored a double century this week in the Bob Willis Trophy. He has replaced James Vince, who failed to live up to the expectations in his last series.
Along with Vince, Reece Topley and Liam Dawson too fell out of favour, though Topley has been named in the reserve squad. Pat Brown and Liam Livingstone are another two players chosen as the reserve.
In the absence of Chris Silverwood, England’s assistant coach Graham Thorpe will be taking over as the chief coach for the series. Thorpe will be assisted by the former England batsman Paul Collingwood.
Here is the squad:
Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonathan Bairstow (wk), Tom Banton, Sam Billings (wk), Tom Curran, Joe Denly, Lewis Gregory, Chris Jordan, Saqib Mahmood, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, David Willey.
RESERVES: Pat Brown, Liam Livingstone, Reece Topley.
