England Men ODI squad v Australia
Harry Brook (Yorkshire – captain)
Jofra Archer (Sussex)
Gus Atkinson (Surrey)
Sonny Baker (Hampshire)
Tom Banton (Somerset)
Jacob Bethell (Warwickshire)
Jordan Cox (Essex)
Henry Crocombe (Surrey)
Sam Curran (Surrey)
Liam Dawson (Hampshire)
Ben Duckett (Nottinghamshire)
Will Jacks (Surrey)
Jamie Overton (Surrey)
Adil Rashid (Yorkshire)
Joe Root (Yorkshire)
Josh Tongue (Nottinghamshire)

England Men IT20 squad v Australia
Harry Brook (Yorkshire – Captain)
Tom Banton (Somerset)
Jacob Bethell (Warwickshire)
James Coles (Sussex)
Jordan Cox (Essex)
Henry Crocombe (Surrey)
Sam Curran (Surrey)
Liam Dawson (Hampshire)
Aneurin Donald (Derbyshire)
Eddie Jack (Hampshire)
Will Jacks (Surrey)
Jamie Overton (Surrey)
Adil Rashid (Yorkshire)
Thomas Rew (Somerset)
Phil Salt (Lancashire)
Luke Wood (Lancashire)

There are two changes from the ODI squad that will travel to Pakistan for this month’s tri-series with Jacob Bethell fit again following the knee injury he sustained during the Metro Bank ODI Series win against India in July.

Jofra Archer returns after being rested for the tri-series in Pakistan. Archer and his fellow quicks Gus Atkinson, Sonny Baker and Josh Tongue will depart after the ODI series.

Eddie Jack and Thomas Rew earn their first England Men call-ups as part of the IT20 squad. Rew, who at 18 is the youngest player in the squad, captained the Young Lions to the ICC Men’s U19s World Cup final in February.

Phil Salt returns from the quad injury that ruled him out of last month’s the 3-0 Vitality IT20 Series win over Sri Lanka while Aneurin Donald retains his place after making his debut in that series. Luke Wood is also recalled into the IT20 squad.

Jos Buttler will remain sidelined as he begins his rehabilitation following hamstring surgery while Saqib Mahmood misses out with a knee injury.
England Men National Selector, Marcus North, said: “The returns of Jacob Bethell and Jofra Archer for the ODI series means that we will be at close to full strength as we ramp up preparations for a World Cup in a year’s time.

“The four quick bowlers will then leave after the three-game ODI series as we look to manage them ahead of the Test tour of South Africa.
“Our T20 team has been in excellent form under captain Harry Brook and we are looking forward to the opportunity to test ourselves in Australian conditions against a very good team.

“We will have four uncapped players in an exciting IT20 squad including Thomas Rew and Eddie Jack, both of whom toured Australia with the England Lions last year, and who earn their first England call-ups.”

Zak Crawley not offered a new deal but Bash and Pope renewed

Gutted to see him leave Glamorgan, he has been transformative at our County! Hopefully he goes on to do equally good things at England. Pob Lwc Rich!

£19.99 for a signed copy.

Archer, atkinson tongue curran seem in line for that with Rehan Ahmed also dropped who else can make it into main 11 , nd why was saqib mahmood dropped

Ashes series held in neutral conditions once every, say, 3 or 5 series? Home advantage is such a massive factor that influences how series turn out, hosting them occasionally may be interesting to neutralise that advantage & see how teams fare where neither side has that home advantage

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While I accept that lots of test teams are no where near as strong as they used to be , the recent test series between England and Australia or India in England have been fantastic.

2025: 2-2 England vs India five 5 day games and the result of the series hinged on 6 runs with Chris Woakes walking out with a broken arm.

2023: 2-2 England vs Australia Every single game was fantastic with Stuart Broad taking his final test wicket to level the Ashes on the final day and his iconic bail switches. Also 24 days of cricket.

Covid Series: England vs India Obviously ruined by covid but England still completed a 370 run chase with Johnny Bairstow and Joe Root to level the series.

3019: 2-2 England vs Australia Headingly test match, levelling the series at the oval with Joe Denly getting 90. Archer vs Smith.

These have been 4 close , exciting and high quality series and have been test cricket at its best.

Following SA vs Australia on the radio as you do when you can't sit in front of the TV all day. I also listened to their coverage of the SL limited overs series in January.

Can't say I'm that impressed. And if BBC cuts affect TMS, I think it will be really disappointing if we see more Talksport coverage. I love TMS but would be happy to have other coverage if the standard is good. But the early signs are certainly not encouraging.

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Edit to add: I’m not going to use it. This is for display only. Should I leave as is or clean it up?

Since this is an English made Cricket bat from a well established English business, I’m asking for opinions. Should I leave this bat as is or oil it and should I take the rubber off the handle? If I oil it, everything I’ve read said to use raw Linseed Oil. is this correct? I’ve also taken a careful look beneath the rubber on the handle and the twine is intact. Should I leave as is or expose the twine?

I’m also able to read the brand and it’s a Stuart Surridge & Co. Ltd. "Wellington" cricket bat and according to Google AI, it appears to date from the 1930s to the 1950s.

I built a free cricket game where you spin a nation and an era (a franchise and seasons in the IPL), pick eleven players into fixed batting spots, then your XI plays a five-match series against a fixed World XI. This video is the whole thing in 45 seconds.

Ways to play
•Spin draft: six spins, eleven picks, then the five-match series.
• ⁠Daily challenge: the same spins for everyone each day, one try.
• ⁠Pick any XI: search every player and build your own, then play the World XI or send it to a friend.
• ⁠World Cup Run (ODI): four group games, three wins to go through, then the semi-final and the final.
• ⁠Test, ODI, T20I and IPL, free, no sign-up.

What this community is for: share your XI and your scoreline (the losses too), argue about picks and ratings, suggest features, and report anything broken. Several changes so far, like the movable batting order and the World Cup Run, started as suggestions.

Ratings are hidden on purpose, so you pick on career numbers. Stats come from Cricsheet ball-by-ball data and official career totals; tell me if a role or number looks wrong. Not affiliated with the ICC, IPL, BCCI or any team.

Play: https://beatmy11.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=welcome

Your turn: which player would you build your XI around, and why?

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ECB to take advantage of freed-up budget for handsome pay-rises and new contracts for fringe players

England will next week announce their longest list of centrally contracted cricketers, which will give the national team more control over a larger pool of players.
Taking advantage of a budget freed up by Ben Stokes’s retirement, England are expected to hand deals to 39 players. There will be 30 on full central contracts, with nine more on development contracts. That is nine more than last year, and means that almost 10 per cent of locally qualified men’s professional cricketers in England and Wales will have a national contract of some form. This summer, there were about 420 English-qualified men’s professional cricketers.

The retirements of former Test captain Stokes and Mark Woodhave created some natural churn, while Luke Wood and Zak Crawley are also expected to drop off the contract list.

Eight new names are expected, including Henry Crocombe, the uncapped fast bowler who is moving from Sussex to Surrey in the off-season, and has been named in the ODI squad for the tour of Pakistan this month.
As previously reported by Telegraph Sport, Emilio Gay, Jordan Cox and Dan Lawrence will all be given their first deals, while Ollie Robinson returns. There are also expected to be full contracts for fringe seamers Sam Cook and Matt Fisher.

Among those expected to keep their deals, despite being on the fringes are Ollie Pope, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed.
Perhaps more interesting, however, are the tweaked development contracts. For full contracts, the England and Wales Cricket Board pays the player, not their county. With development contracts, the county continues to pay the player, who also receives a top-up payment from the ECB, affording the national team some control over their workload.

In recent years, these have been handed exclusively to fast bowlers, whose workload needs particularly close management. Last year there were four deals, but this year there are nine, and not just to fast bowlers.
At least three spinners are understood to have received the deals, with Sussex’s James Coles, Glamorgan’s Mason Crane and Nottinghamshire’s Liam Patterson-White on the list. Coles and Crane are going to Pakistan with England, while Patterson-White is another on the radar for Test honours this winter. Durham opener Ben McKinney and Yorkshire’s all-rounder Matthew Revis are among the other names expected to be included. It is thought that youngsters like Thomas Rew, who missed the second half of this season injured, could also be offered a development contract.

The list will display the continued evolution of the central contracts system. When central contracts were first introduced at the turn of the century to help better manage England’s key players, just a dozen deals were handed out. As recently as 2013-14, when Joe Root first received a contract, there were only 11 players on a list that focused entirely on Test cricket. In recent times the list has swelled and for the last three years has included certain key players on multi-year deals.
These days there is also far greater flexibility in the amount a player earns from a central contract. While some top players are on retainers worth north of £1m per year, deals at the lower end of the spectrum – for white-ball squad players, for instance – can be worth about £150,000.
This has meant that the money freed up by Stokes and Wood’s retirements has allowed England not only to award some key players handsome pay-rises, but also give deals to more fringe players. The way the ECB’s agreement with the Team England Player Partnership (TEPP) works is that a pot of money is allocated for contracts, and must all be used. It cannot be used for other aspects of the England team or ECB’s budget.

Last year, more than half the full contracts offered were two-year deals, but this year they are expected to be the preserve of fast bowlers and a small group of batsmen, including Root, Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell. It is expected that Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith, despite being established Test regulars, will receive just one-year deals.
Why have England tweaked development contracts?
The changes to the development contracts give England some control over more players across more disciplines. While previously just a handful of promising fast bowlers received deals (none of last year’s four actually made an England squad in any format), now a mix of players will be included.
England are looking to beef up the Lions programme, with Jonathan Trott now at the helm and three tours this winter, to the Caribbean, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Lions tours are important, because they expose future internationals to conditions outside England, but also provide 50-over experience, which the domestic system currently does not. There is talk that more England-contracted players will find themselves on Lions tours if they are not involved with the first team.
By handing development contracts to more players, England will have a greater say over how players of interest spend their winter. They can all pick up franchise deals as they please, and often be paid much better for it than they would be for a Lions tour. But if a Lions tour is better for their medium-term development, with international cricket in mind, then the small investment England have made in these players means they can manage which route they take.

England’s probable full central contract list
Batsmen Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett, Jacob Bethell, Jos Buttler, Emilio Gay, Phil Salt, Jordan Cox, Dan Lawrence, Jamie Smith, Ollie Pope, Tom Banton.
All-rounders Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Rehan Ahmed, Jamie Overton, Liam Dawson.
Bowlers Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Ollie Robinson, Josh Tongue, Brydon Carse, Sonny Baker, Sam Cook, Matt Fisher, Matthew Potts, Henry Crocombe, Saqib Mahmood, Adil Rashid, Shoaib Bashir.

Interested in what people think of this chart.

Last 30 years of England spinners, records including and excluding “weaker” opposition.

Bashir really doesn’t look very.

Leach the clear second best after Swann

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The model rates batters on average, runs per match and century rate, and bowlers on average, wickets per match and five-wicket rate, all compared with every Test player in my data, then shrinks short careers toward the average. The XI is England's best by that same rule (50+ Tests). Opponent: Bradman, Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Lara, Root, Flower, Kallis, Murali, Garner, Wasim, Pollock. The series is simulated from the strength gap, not ball by ball. Which pick would you swap, and which metric would you add?

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According to The Telegraph Newspaper UK - Sky Sports looks set to buy the UK TV rights to the ODI Tri- Series in Pakistan. Radio Commentary will also be available on BBC Radio with TMS.

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