‘No doors are closed’ as Root is left out
JOE Root has been omitted from England’s 14-man squad to face Australia in three Twenty20 internationals but national selector Ed Smith insists “no doors are closed” to the Test captain.
The Yorkshireman and Chris Woakes are included in a 13-strong squad for the one-day series which follows as a number of Test stars became available for white-ball duty for the first time this summer.
But from the group who have recently finished their Test commitments, only Jos
Buttler, Jofra Archer, Mark Wood and Sam Curran are included in both squads ahead of a T20 series which gets under way today at the Ageas Bowl.
Ben Stokes, who missed the final two Tests of the summer against Pakistan to return to New Zealand and visit his ill father, was not considered.
Jason Roy has initially been left out of both squads as he continues his recovery from a left side strain, but will remain in England’s ‘bio-secure’ bubble with a view to demonstrating his fitness for the three ODIs.
Tom Banton and Dawid Malan have been selected ahead of Root, whose workload and the fact he is no longer an automatic T20 selection contributed to his exclusion.
Smith said: “I don’t think any door is closed to Joe Root. He’s a brilliant cricketer, outstanding man, he’s also England’s Test captain.
“At the moment we are setting up in a particular way as an XI in T20 cricket. Joe’s not in that and then the decision moves towards if he’s not in that starting XI at the moment, although no doors are closed to him in the future, where’s the right place for Joe?
“He plays so much cricket, gives so much to England and the decision is it’s not right we have him in the squad if he’s not likely to be starting, so he’s not in the squad for the T20s.
“Joe is an exceptionally adaptable and outstanding batsman and he could easily come back into the reckoning but at the moment that’s where he sits.”
T20 SQUAD: E Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, J Archer, J Bairstow, T Banton, S Billings, J Buttler, S Curran, T Curran, J Denly, C Jordan, D Malan, A Rashid, M Wood. Reserves: L Livingstone, S Mahmood.
ODI SQUAD: E Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, J Archer, J Bairstow, T Banton, S Billings, J Buttler, S Curran, T Curran, A Rashid, J Root, C Woakes, M Wood. Reserves: J Denly, S Mahmood