England keep faith with old guard as Ben Stokes, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes return for T20 World Cup

By Charlie On Sep 2, 2022

Ben Stokes has been recalled to England’s 15-man squad for the T20 World Cup in Australia, but will sit out the preceding seven-match tour of Pakistan, for which his fellow World Cup selections Chris Woakes and Mark Wood are among the notable returnees in an enlarged 19-player squad.

The Pakistan series – England’s first visit to the country since 2005 – will be led by Jos Buttler, as will the World Cup campaign, although Moeen Ali is earmarked to captain the side in the opening contests in Pakistan while Buttler recovers from the calf injury that ruled him out of the latter stages of the Hundred.

Between them, Stokes, Wood and Woakes have not played a single T20 contest this year – international or domestic – through a combination of injury and rotation, but the selectors have kept faith with their experience. Stokes, England’s Test captain who retired from ODIs in July, will go into the World Cup build-up after 18 months out of the T20I set-up, with his immediate priority being next week’s deciding third Test against South Africa at the Kia Oval.

Two other members of England’s World Cup squad, Liam Livingstone and Chris Jordan, will also miss the Pakistan tour as they recover from ankle and finger injuries respectively, but both are on track to be fit for the tournament in Australia, the first match of which is against Afghanistan in Perth on October 22.

Wood, who broke down with an elbow injury during England’s Test tour of the Caribbean in March, underwent the second of two operations on the joint in July, although he is expecting to train with the Test team at The Oval this week as he continues his return to action. Woakes, meanwhile, has been hampered by persistent knee problems in recent months, and having been limited to a solitary 2nd XI match for Warwickshire this summer, also underwent surgery in July in a bid to be ready for the World Cup.

England have named three travelling reserves for the World Cup, among them Tymal Mills, who featured in last year’s T20 World Cup in the UAE. Unlike his fellow reserves, Liam Dawson and Richard Gleeson, however, Mills will not travel to Pakistan as continues his recuperation from toe surgery earlier this month.

As anticipated, the notable absentee from England’s ranks for both tours is Jason Roy, one of the linchpins of the team that reached the T20 final in India in 2016 and went on to lift the 50-over World Cup at Lord’s in 2019. His place in the squad has been handed to Lancashire’s opening batter, Phil Salt, while Yorkshire’s Harry Brook is also included as a batting option, having made the first of his four T20I appearances to date in the West Indies earlier this year.

The Pakistan campaign features a range of notable call-ups, among them Warwickshire’s Olly Stone, one of England’s 90mph-plus fast bowlers, who battled back from a stress fracture last year, only to miss this year’s Hundred with a broken finger. Tom Helm, the Middlesex and Birmingham Phoenix seamer, is among five players in the 19 who have yet to be capped at T20I level.

Lancashire’s Luke Wood receives his second England call-up of the year, after being an unused reserve in the Netherlands in June, while on the batting front, Will Jacks is rewarded for an impressive home summer which included only the second century in the history of the Hundred, for Oval Invincibles against Southern Brave last month.

Nottinghamshire’s Ben Duckett is also back in England’s ranks, having played a solitary T20I since 2016, while Jordan Cox receives his first call-up, 12 months on from his starring role in Kent’s T20 Blast triumph in 2021. There is no place, however, for Somerset’s Will Smeed, the scorer of the first Hundred hundred, nor a recall for the ever-prolific Alex Hales.

England T20 World Cup squad Jos Buttler (capt), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Travelling Reserves Liam Dawson, Richard Gleeson, Tymal Mills

England T20I squad to tour Pakistan: Jos Buttler (capt), Moeen Ali (vice-capt), Harry Brook, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Ben Duckett, Liam Dawson, Richard Gleeson, Tom Helm, Will Jacks, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Olly Stone, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Luke Wood, Mark Wood

Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket

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