Door remains open to Root but Willey suffers further England agony

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 ahead of a T20 series which gets under way on Friday at the Ageas Bowl, Tom Banton and Yorkshire’s Dawid Malan have been selected ahead of Root, whose workload and the fact he is no longer an automatic T20 pick contributed to his exclusion.

“I don’t think any door is closed to Joe,” said Smith.

“He’s a brilliant cricketer, an outstanding man and he’s also England’s Test captain.

“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.”

Elsewhere, Yorkshire’s David Willey, along with Reece Topley, Liam Dawson and James Vince, make way from the ODI squad which beat Ireland 2- 1 earlier this summer.

Willey is also discarded from a

T20 group that is currently facing Pakistan. He was named player of the series against Ireland as he returned to the international stage for the first time since being replaced by Jofra Archer for last year’s World Cup.

But as England start building towards next year’s T20 World Cup in India, Smith admitted it had left Willey surplus to requirements.

“David’s come back having put in a lot of hard work,” added Smith, “That’s been reflected in some very strong performances.

“The fact is with David, at the moment we are preferring some other people to him.

“It is of course disappointing for David – he’s playing good cricket – but that’s one of the unfortunate consequences of having a lot of strength in depth.”

Before Australia, England will look to seal a sixth successive T20 series win in today’s third and final match against Pakistan.

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.