ENG vs WI | England drop Bairstow and Moeen; Sam Curran and Leach named in reserves

07/04/2020

England, on Saturday, named a 13-man main squad and a nine-man reserve squad for the first Test against Windies on July 8 and left out wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow and all-rounder Moeen Ali from the 22-man squad. While Sam Curran and Leach didn’t make the main cut, they were named in the reserves.

In the wake of the conclusion of the intra-squad warm-up match, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), on Saturday, named a 13-man main squad for the first Test against the Windies at the Ageas Bowl on July 8 and pretty much picked all the usual suspects. Led by Ben Stokes, the 13-man squad features all the senior members of the side - James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes - while the quartet of Dom Sibley, Dom Bess, Joe Denly and Zak Crawley, all of who had impressive tours of South Africa, also retain their places. Young Ollie Pope and speedster Mark Wood, too, retain their places while the squad also sees both Jofra Archer and Rory Burns return from injuries which they sustained during the Tests against South Africa.

Dan Lawrence, who scored a fifty in the intra-squad game and was expected to fill-in for Joe Root, is one of the more unlucky players to miss out on the main squad, but he finds a place with Ollie Robinson, Ben Foakes, Craig Overton and Olly Stone in the nine-man reserve squad. Sam Curran and Jack Leach, two names who were primed to be in the main squad, surprisingly were left out of the thirteen, but they, too, however, were picked in the reserve squad. Curran was named in the reserves with him testing negative for Covid-19 after he showed signs of sickness a couple of days ago.

The two notable names to miss out from both the main squad and the reserves are Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali, both of who failed to make the 22. While England made it clear to Bairstow that he was no longer a first-choice member of the side, after his dismal Ashes campaign, Ali, on the other hand, had thrown his name into the hat for selection for the first time in almost ten months, after taking a break from Test cricket midway through the Ashes.

Despite missing the cut for the first Test due to the birth of his child, Root is expected to join the English team prior to the second Test after self-isolating for 7 days. The first of the three Tests will kick off at the Ageas Bowl on July 8.

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Dominic Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler (wk), Zak Crawley, Joe Denly, Ollie Pope, Dom Sibley, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Test Reserves: James Bracey, Sam Curran, Ben Foakes, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Ollie Robinson, Olly Stone