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The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Wednesday (12 October) announced a 15-member squad for the Pakistan Test series slated to take place in December. Opening batter Keaton Jennings and Liam Livingstone have got a recall while star pacer Stuart Broad has missed out. Will Jacks, meanwhile, got his maiden call-up with Alex Lees facing the axe for averaging 25.15 across 13 Test innings during the 2022 home summer.
Jennings will probably take Lees' place in the playing XI if included, while Livingstone will also stand a chance to make his Test debut after having been selected for the first time since 2018. Opener Jennings returns for the first time since February 2019 after a good summer with Lancashire, where he was the top run-scorer in the County Championship with 1,233 in 17 innings.
As reported earlier, Stuart Broad will be giving this tour a miss due to the birth of his first child with his partner Mollie King towards the end of November. Matthew Potts, meanwhile, has been left out of the 15-man squad with James Anderson, Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood, and Jamie Overton being the four pace options.
Harry Brook is also there in the squad and is expected to bat in the middle order with no Jonny Bairstow around. Ben Duckett has also retained his place after getting a call-up for the final Test against South Africa in September.
Notably, England are scheduled to play three Test matches in Pakistan, starting on December 1 in Rawalpindi, before further games in Multan from December 9 and Karachi from December 17. It is the first time an England team will play red-ball cricket in Pakistan since 2005 and comes off the back of a T20 series, which England won 4-3.
England Squad: Ben Stokes (captain), James Anderson, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ben Foakes, Will Jacks, Keaton Jennings, Jack Leach, Liam Livingstone, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Mark Wood.