England's winter of cricket 2024/25

First topic message reminder :

The squad for the tour of Pakistan has just been announced...Stokes and Crawley are back, with Dan Lawrence dropped. There are also recalls for Rehan Ahmed and Jack Leach, with Brydon Carse getting a tour also.

Full squad (likely XI then others);

Zak Crawley
Ben Duckett
Ollie Pope
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes
Jamie Smith (wk)
Gus Atkinson
Olly Stone
Jack Leach
Shoaib Bashir

Reserves:
Jordan Cox
Brydon Carse
Rehan Ahmed
Chris Woakes
Josh Hull
Matthew Potts

Will MacPherson noting they see Tom Hartley as more suited for the true turning wickets of SL/India/Bangladesh, hence his omission. Tests likely to be played at Rawalpindi, Multan, Rawalpindi. (Two Pindi tests...fun).

Extra seamers suggest Stokes might not be fit to bowl?

It felt a bit like they're looking at Overton as a middle overs type bowler. Another potential Plunkett replacement. Quicker. Tall. Can potentially bowl back of a length and try to get wickets with inconsistent up and down bounce that hitting pitches hard sometimes extracts. He'll need to be more accurate. Plunkett developed that later as well though.

I rate Carse higher for that role. His start in Pakistan will hopefully lead to more time in the Test side though. Overton is a reasonable player to look at in that specific role I think. Plus, he can hit a long ball of course. They need more depth again.

I think it's good that they seem to be looking at that sort of clear role distinction again at least. It's something that Bayliss and Morgan were excellent at doing during that sides peak.

NZ have named their test squad for the series starting in just under two weeks:

Tom Latham (capt), Tom Blundell, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Matt Henry, Daryl Mitchell, Will O'Rourke, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner (Tests 2 and 3), Nathan Smith, Tim Southee, Kane Williamson, Will Young.

It's a small squad, so I imagine alterations will be made if necesssary.

Big news is Southee announcing his retirement and this will be his last series. It's obviously been on the cards, with a noticeable dip in his performance levels recently. He made his debut in a NZ home series v England in 2008, taking 5/55 in his first innings (Vaughan, Strauss and Pietersen included!), so things have come full circle. That was also the last test series England won in NZ. Southee has 385 wickets, so 400 wickets will likely elude him. His average is 29.88, he'll love to keep that below 30! I think Southee is also the last test player remaining who made his test debut in a pre-DRS era, with Anderson, Broad and Shakib all recently retiring.

As for the rest of the squad, Williamson has returned from a troubling injury which kept him out v India. Jamieson still injured, alas. No Patel and no Santner until test two. Smith is a potential debutant - he has 144 FC wickets @ 25.85 with some right arm medium fast stuff, and a FC batting average of 27.

Looks a fairly solid NZ team overall. A lot will depend on O'Rourke, who can be devastating and can be woeful, and Henry with the ball, as the other options don't look incredible (unless Smith turns out to be a find). NZ's batting looks strong with the return of Williamson. Conway and Mitchell also very good, Blundell likes batting v England also, and Latham's a 40+avg player at home.

Williamson played his first cricket since September, top scoring with 60 for Northern Districts in their score of 268 in a four day game. Good little tune up for Williamson ahead of the test series, which starts in eight days time.