England will hand the Test wicketkeeping gloves to Surrey’s Jamie Smith for next month’s series against West Indies, with both Ben Foakes and Jonny Bairstow dropped.
England will name their squad on Sunday morning for the three-match series against West Indies, with a number of significant changes marking the start of the second era of Ben Stokes’s captaincy. Sussex’s Ollie Robinson is set to be dropped after after an underwhelming year.
Smith is drafted into the squad at the expense of his county team-mate Foakes. The 23-year-old will keep wicket and bat at No 7, despite the fact Foakes is Surrey’s regular Championship wicketkeeper.
It is also understood England are planning to pick Shoaib Bashir over his Somerset team-mate Jack Leach, in another reversion of county roles. Leach is Somerset’s first-choice spinner, with Bashir last week sent out on loan to Worcestershire.
There is also expected to be significant change in the seam-bowling department, with Robinson dropped, and places for uncapped fast bowlers Gus Atkinson and Dillon Pennington. Surrey’s Atkinson has played both white-ball formats at international level and toured India earlier this year with the Test squad, while Pennington has 29 Championship wickets for Nottinghamshire since moving from Worcestershire in the close season.
Chris Woakes and Matthew Potts return after missing the tour of India, while James Anderson will take a place in the squad for the first Test before retiring, with Mark Wood added after that. A major boost for the bowling stocks comes from Stokes, who will play his third match of the season for Durham on Sunday having returned to full all-round status.
The most significant calls comes behind the stumps. Smith is a solid keeper, but England appear to have concluded his batting form in both red and white-ball cricket makes his case irresistible. He averages 50.7 and strikes at 76.9 batting No 4 in the Championship this season and has 285 runs in the Vitality Blast at a strike-rate north of 200.
Smith, who has played ODI cricket for England, will turn 24 on the third day of his first Test match at Lord’s, which will also be Anderson’s 188th and final in Test cricket.
Latest omission could spell the end of Bairstow’s Test career
Both Foakes and Bairstow were in the XI for all five Tests against India earlier this year, but both have been dropped as England look to regenerate their side and push towards next winter’s Ashes. The squeeze has been put on by the return of Harry Brook, who missed the tour due to the death of his grandmother.
Foakes kept beautifully in India but struggled to make a mark with the bat barring 47 in Ranchi. England have looked for their No 7 to be a more aggressive player.
Bairstow was chosen ahead of Foakes to keep in the Ashes last summer, having staged a remarkable recovery from the awful broken leg he suffered nine months earlier. While he missed a couple of chances earlier in the series, he finished with an average of 40. The 34-year-old played as a specialist batsman in India but failed to reach 40. Despite a golden run just after Ben Stokes took over as captain, Bairstow’s best returns in Test cricket have tended to be as a keeper-bat at No 7, where he averages 40.
Smith has kept in Championship cricket this summer when Faokes has been injured, and is first-choice in Surrey’s Blast team. He has also beaten off competition from Phil Salt and Durham’s Ollie Robinson, who is batting brilliantly this summer.
Brook’s return looks set to be the only notable change to the batting, with vice-captain Ollie Pope set to keep his place at No 3. Another Surrey player, Dan Lawrence, is retained as the squad’s spare batsman and he may provide a second spin-bowling option, having picked up 15 Championship wickets at 36 this season.
Leach came home from England’s tour of India with a nasty knee injury sustained at Hyderabad, his first match back after a stress-fracture of the back before last summer’s Ashes. He has been England’s first-choice spinner throughout Stokes’ two-year tenure as captain. In his absence in India, 20-year-old Bashir bowled well, but he has had a quiet start to the season, including being hit for 37 runs in an over by Lawrence earlier this week. Bashir’s selection is likely a nod to England’s long-term planning for next winter’s Ashes.
Robinson, who has played 20 Tests, should really be succeeding Anderson and Stuart Broad as England’s new-ball banker, but he has lost his way a little over the last 12 months. He played just once in India, and struggled with another back injury. Robinson has an average of under 23 from 20 Tests, showing what a fine bowler he is at his best.
England (expected) v West Indies:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Dan Lawrence, Chris Woakes, Dillon Pennington, Gus Atkinson, Matthew Potts, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson (1st Test), Mark Wood (2nd and 3rd Tests)
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