England have torn up their batting order for the upcoming Black Caps tour, dropping Zak Crawley, leaving out Ollie Pope and naming three uncapped players in a 15-strong squad that marks the start of a rebuild after their 4-1 Ashes thrashing in Australia.
The squad, announced overnight New Zealand time, sees Durham’s Emilio Gay penciled in as Ben Duckett’s likely opening partner, uncapped fast bowler Sonny Baker called into the test set-up for the first time, and wicketkeeper-batter James Rew added alongside the regular gloveman Jamie Smith. Seamer Ollie Robinson, who has not played a test in two years, has also been recalled, while Gus Atkinson holds his place despite being struck on the helmet twice while batting for Surrey against Nottinghamshire on Sunday.
The three-test series against the Black Caps starts at Lord’s on 4 June and forms the backbone of a long English summer that also features eight limited-overs matches against India and three tests against Pakistan.
Gay, 26, earned his selection on the back of impressive County Championship form including three centuries, and his promotion follows a thin start to the domestic season for Crawley. Pope, axed before the third Ashes test in Australia, was overlooked again. With Joe Root, Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell still in the side, England retain experience in the middle order, but the top of the order will look unfamiliar when the players walk out at Lord’s.
Baker’s call-up takes on added significance because Jofra Archer is unavailable for the Black Caps series, having committed to the Indian Premier League. Matt Fisher, brought into the Ashes squad when Mark Wood was ruled out, also keeps his place. With Robinson back in the mix, England can spread the new-ball workload across a packed home programme rather than leaning on a single attack leader.
England men’s managing director Rob Key told RNZ that Robinson, who has 76 test wickets from 20 matches at an average of 22.92, had a chance to lead the attack on home soil. “When he’s fit and bowling at a decent pace for him, which is around 82, 83 miles an hour, he is world-class,” Key said. “When you look at his record, he is right up there statistically in all the bowlers globally of all time. He’s back up to his full fitness. He’ll add that new-ball skill and it’s exciting to see him back.”
Key also flagged that captain Ben Stokes could be used more often with the new ball, easing the workload on Robinson, Atkinson, Baker and Fisher across the three Black Caps tests and the rest of the summer.
Asked whether supporters should expect a different approach after Bazball misfired repeatedly in Australia, Key was careful not to disown the brand. “I think what we want is to have players to be able to go out there and play their best game,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s one way of playing, where you’re looking to go out there and play shots.” He added that he had told Gay to “go and play your best game, don’t worry about anything else. Work out how you’re going to take on that bowling attack at Lord’s on the first day on that pitch”.
Alongside the squad, the England and Wales Cricket Board confirmed the appointment of Australian Marcus North as national selector. North has been director of cricket at Durham since 2018, where he has worked closely with Stokes, and he played 21 tests for Australia. Outgoing selector Luke Wright stepped down after the Ashes defeat, and the NZ Herald noted that North’s name had been circling for the role for some weeks. The ECB now has a New Zealander in head coach Brendon McCullum and an Australian as chief selector, a set-up Key defended on the grounds that experience trumped nationality. “He has brilliant insight into the county game, he’s got a huge amount of experience in international cricket so we just felt he was the best candidate for that job,” Key said of North.
For the Black Caps, the England shake-up arrives at a useful moment. New Zealand themselves are in transition, with captain Tom Latham 34, Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell turning 35 this year, and both Kane Williamson and Tom Blundell close to 36. As the NZ Herald has pointed out in its recent analysis of the next generation of Kiwi batters, succession planning is high on selection manager Gavin Larsen’s agenda. The June series gives Latham’s side a chance to bank early test points of the new World Test Championship cycle against an England team still finding its feet.
England’s first-test squad reads Ben Stokes (captain), Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Sonny Baker, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett, Matthew Fisher, Emilio Gay, James Rew, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Jamie Smith and Josh Tongue. The first ball at Lord’s is just over three weeks away.
What do you think, are England’s selectors panicking too soon, or is dumping Crawley and turning to uncapped talent exactly the reset their batting order needs? Drop a comment below and let us know.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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