England & Wales Cricket Board announced the squad for the tour of West Indies. The humiliating 4-0 loss against Australia in the recently concluded Ashed has already seen the likes of Ashley Giles, Chris Silverwood, and Graham Thorpe losing their jobs and now England’s two leading wicket-takers in Test cricket have been forced to follow the same route. The selection panel has dropped eight players who featured in the recent Ashes series.
England’s all-time leading test wicket-takers James Anderson and Stuart Broad have been dropped for the three-test tour against West Indies. Fast bowlers Anderson and Broad have taken a combined 1,177 wickets in Test cricket but were left out of the 16-man squad by a selection panel. Apart from them Dom Bess, Sam Billings, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Haseeb Hameed and Dawid Malan also miss out.
In a statement released by the ECB, Strauss, said: “In respect of James Anderson and Stuart Broad, I want to emphasise this does not mean the end for them as England players. We feel that it is important to look at some exciting new bowling potential and give some added responsibility to other players who have featured previously. No one doubts the quality and experience that James and Stuart bring to the England set-up. It will be up to the new managing director and permanent head coach to decide on whether they will be involved this summer and beyond.”
England are scheduled to play a three-match Test series against the West Indies with the opening game set to be played on March 8. The three-match Test series forms part of the ICC World Test Championship.
England Squad: Joe Root (C), Jonny Bairstow, Zak Crawley, Matthew Fischer, Ben Foakes, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Alex Lees, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton, Matthew Parkinson, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood