Picture Credit: Twitter/@englandcricket
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have announced their 17-member squad on Sunday for the Ashes 2021-22, set to take place in Australia. Joe Root will lead a strong-looking side which features most of the regular red-ball players like James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Jos Buttler. The squad announcement comes just couple of days after ECB had given their green-signal amid so much uncertainty around the tour.
"To facilitate further progress and allow a squad to be selected, The ECB Board has met today and given its approval for the tour to go ahead. This decision is subject to several critical conditions being met before we travel. We look forward to the ongoing assistance from Cricket Australia in resolving these matters in the coming days," ECB had confirmed in an official statement on Friday.
England's squad for Ashes 2021-22
Joe Root (Captain), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
Ben Stokes not included in England's side
England's star all-rounder Ben Stokes will notably continue to stay away from cricket field for some more time as he has been left out of the squad for upcoming Ashes. The 30-year-old recently had a second operation on his left index finger, which he had injured while playing for RR in IPL 2021 in April.
"Stokes had two screws and scar tissue removed from the index finger of his left hand. He will now undergo an intensive period of rehabilitation for the next four weeks under the supervision of the ECB's medical team," ECB had stated.
Ashes 2021-22 schedule
Australia will be hosting this year's Ashes after they had managed to retain the urn in 2019, where the series ended 2-2. While Tim Paine's side will hope for a repeat of the same, the visitors will come out all guns blazing to regain the Ashes.
This time around, the 5-match Test series will be played in Dec-Jan with the matches being played in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth respectively. The schedule for Ashes 2021 is as follows:
1st Test: Dec 8-12, 2021 (Gabba, Brisbane)
2nd Test: Dec 16-20, 2021 (Adelaide Oval)
3rd Test: Dec 26-30, 2021 (Melbourne Cricket Ground)
4th Test: Jan 5-9, 2022 (Sydney Cricket Ground)
5th Test: Jan 14-18, 2022 (WACA, Perth)