ESPNcricinfo
The fallout from England’s disastrous Ashes tour has moved from management to the dressing room with James Anderson and Stuart Broad, the country’s two leading wicket-takers in Test cricket, left out of the squad for the forthcoming tour of the West Indies.
Neither Anderson nor Broad, together the most-successful new-ball pair in Test history, will travel to the Caribbean for the three-Test series after an interim selection panel of Andrew Strauss, Paul Collingwood and James Taylor decided to give opportunities to a younger set of pace bowlers, including uncapped pair Saqib Mahmood and Matthew Fisher.
Anderson, who is third on the all-time list of Test wicket-takers with 640, topped the averages for England in Australia, taking eight wickets at 23.37 from three matches. Broad, with 537 wickets in his Test career, claimed 13 at 26.30 to move past Bob Willis and Ian Botham as England’s most-prolific Ashes bowler.
Strauss, England’s interim managing director, said that the newly convened selectors, who reportedly took input from the Test captain, Joe Root, wanted to “draw a line” under the defeat in Australia, but stressed the call to omit Anderson and Broad “does not mean the end for them as England players”, with that decision set to confront the new management team that the ECB will hope to have installed by the summer.
England’s first Test squad selected since last week’s sacking of Chris Silverwood, the head coach and chief selector, saw eight players dropped after being involved in Australia – as well as Anderson and Broad, Jos Buttler, Rory Burns, Haseeb Hameed, Dawid Malan, Sam Billings and Dom Bess all missed out.
Collingwood was installed as interim head coach on Monday, following the sackings of Silverwood, assistant coach Graham Thorpe and England men’s managing director, Ashley Giles. England departs later this month to play World Test Championship fixtures in Antigua, Barbados and Grenada, having managed just one series win in the Caribbean since 1968.
England Men’s Test squad
Joe Root (Yorkshire) captain
Jonathan Bairstow (Yorkshire)
Zak Crawley (Kent)
Matthew Fisher (Yorkshire)
Ben Foakes (Surrey)
Dan Lawrence (Essex)
Jack Leach (Somerset)
Alex Lees (Durham)
Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire)
Craig Overton (Somerset)
Matthew Parkinson (Lancashire)
Ollie Pope (Surrey)
Ollie Robinson (Sussex)
Ben Stokes (Durham)
Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)
Mark Wood (Durham)