The Ashes may not yet have been reduced to speck-in-rear-view-mirror status, but England’s focus has already shifted towards white-ball endeavours, with squads for the late-summer’s series against New Zealand and Ireland set to be announced on Wednesday.
Those matches (seven one-day internationals and four T20s in all) form the final preparation for the autumn’s 50-over World Cup defence and offer the final chance for those seeking to force entry into a 15-man squad.
Places, though, are at a premium. As many as 13 names appear inked in, nine of whom — Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Adil Rashid and Jofra Archer — played in the 2019 success.
Archer is, of that veteran core, the player whose participation is in most doubt, as he recovers from another stress fracture of the elbow, but head coach Matthew Mott indicated this weekend that England will give their most important bowler every chance of being fit, even if it means missing the start of a seven-week tournament.
Dawid Malan, meanwhile, has been an outstanding ODI performer in recent times, averaging a century every three games since the start of last summer, while Harry Brook remains something of a novice in the format but has done enough already in both Test and T20 cricket to nail down a shirt.
Liam Livingstone will surely travel as a spin-bowling all-rounder, though his place in the XI is less secure than 12 months ago, with Sam Curran rounding off the list of certainties after his player-of-the-tournament show at the T20 World Cup last year.
Much from that point will depend on the availability of Ben Stokes, who appears set to reverse his retirement, England ready to pick the all-rounder as a specialist batter if necessary as he continues to manage a chronic knee issue.
That would leave just one place up for grabs in the final squad, but there is further hope for a whole host of contenders, with skipper Buttler and Mott due to name a larger 18-strong provisional group and, even after whittling it down, allowed to take three travelling reserves to India.
Those players could yet play a significant part, with injury questions over several of the likely starters and England’s line-up nothing like as established as it was going into 2019, when only 13 players featured across the entire campaign.
Another seamer will make the main squad, with at least one more in reserve: Reece Topley is at the head of the queue, but Brydon Carse and the uncapped Gus Atkinson are highly rated, while neither Olly Stone nor Saqib Mahmood have yet given up their World Cup dream despite injury-hit summers.
Surrey’s Will Jacks has plenty going for him as an in-form batter who bowls more than handy spin, while teenage spinner Rehan Ahmed will be in contention. Test opener Ben Duckett ought to be suited by conditions on the subcontinent, though Stokes’s return would lessen the need for another middle-order batter.
