Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are insisting their omission from England’s squad to tour West Indies next month is “not the end of the road” and are focused on forcing their way back into the Test side, according to Andrew Strauss.
“I’m not going to say anything other than they were disappointed and I wouldn’t expect anything otherwise,” Strauss, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s interim managing director of men’s cricket, said of their reactions when he delivered the news to them before the squad was announced on Tuesday.
“They take great pride in representing England and they both wanted to be on that tour. There was no impression from either of them that they saw this as the end of the road. I fully expect them to prepare themselves for the summer and put their names in the frame for selection.
“They were very hard conversations. All I can say is I hope they understood the thinking behind it and what we’re trying to achieve here, and also that they got the message very strongly that this isn’t the end for them, because we want them fired up and ready to go in the summer.
“We know there’s going to be a lot of interest in the decision, but we feel like we’re doing it for the right reasons and this is going to help the England team to develop at a time when it really needs to develop quickly.”
Anderson said he had “no intention of finishing” after the recent Ashes series and that after conversations with the captain, Joe Root, and other senior players, “the message is to keep going”. Last year Broad said he did not expect the team to be rebuilt after the Ashes “because it’s not an ageing team that needs rebuilding. This is a youngish team who need a bit of time and I see myself as a big part of our aim to become the best Test team in the world.”
Broad and Anderson are England’s two most successful bowlers of all time, with a combined 1,177 Test wickets. But Strauss said the three-man selection committee for the West Indies tour – also including James Taylor and Paul Collingwood, the interim head coach after the dismissal of Chris Silverwood – decided “it would be remiss of us” not to take the opportunity to omit the bowlers as they try “to give the new director of cricket and coach options to choose from”.
“We felt strategically it was an opportunity for both of them to be left out,” he said. “We see it is a strategic decision. In the end there was clarity that this was an opportunity we needed to take and that is not saying one or both of them will not feature this summer. They’ve given everything to England over a long period of time. I just feel like this is a moment when we had an opportunity to start projecting forward.”
A number of players have been placed on standby to join the tour in case of injury or illness, but Strauss confirmed that neither Anderson nor Broad is among them. Root will move up to third in the batting order at his own request (he averages 38.66 in 53 previous innings at No 3, and 51.27 in 106 innings at No 4), with Ben Stokes under consideration to be promoted to four. Alex Lees, the uncapped 28-year-old Durham batter, will open with Zak Crawley. Strauss also confirmed that Jos Buttler had been available for selection, but that Ben Foakes is now considered the first-choice wicketkeeper.
“Joe Root is very keen to bat 3 going forward, and that allows us to potentially tackle that top-order problem which has been a thorn in our side for a long time,” Strauss said. “With Joe moving up there’s going to be a little bit of a rejig in that batting lineup.”
Strauss said Ollie Robinson, whose fitness was criticised by the bowling coach, Jon Lewis, during the tour of Australia, was working hard to improve his stamina. “His conditioning currently is not what it needs to be and I think he is beginning to understand how hard international cricket is, because you can’t operate at a level that is not 100%,” Strauss said. “He is working very hard at the moment to get that conditioning up.”
Lewis will continue as bowling coach in the West Indies, with Marcus Trescothick, Jeetan Patel and Carl Hopkinson also in the coaching team.
