Mark Butcher says he can understand England’s decision to leave out James Anderson from their Test squad to tour West Indies, but finds the move to also leave out Stuart Broad “quite bizarre”.

The pair are the two most high-profile axings from England’s much-changed touring party, with eight players who toured Australia for the Ashes missing the cut. While how England move on from their reliance on the duo has been a hot topic for a number of years, the two have arguably remained their team’s two best bowlers, with Anderson topping England’s averages in the Ashes, and Broad their second leading wicket-taker in the series.

Butcher explained how he could understand England leaving out Anderson, who is nearing 40, but couldn’t make sense of the decision to leave out Broad, four years Anderson’s junior.

“I can’t [see the logic],” he said on the Wisden Cricket Weekly Podcast. “I can certainly see an argument for giving Jimmy the tour off. I think with Stuart, because his performances have been fantastic, unimpeachable for the last year, but probably longer than that, but also from the point of view of what he quite rightly said about trying to win what’s right in front of you, or at least giving yourself the best chance of winning what’s right in front of you, I find it quite bizarre that he didn’t make the trip.”

England’s pace contingent for the trip comprises Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Saqib Mahmood, Craig Overton and Matt Fisher, with the latter, a Yorkshire quick who has never taken more than 20 wickets in a first-class season, a particular surprise. Butcher said he was excited to see what Fisher, who averages 27.52 with the ball in first-class cricket, could do in the Test arena, but still felt it was inadvisable to pick an attack so short on experience.

“The replacement for [Broad], Matt Fisher, is an interesting one,” Butcher said. “I was a bit blindsided by that. He has certain attributes that might be of use in Test match cricket. He’s tall, he hits the pitch really hard, he gets in close to the stumps, he’s got a McGrath-like action through the crease. That’s not a comparison but it’s just the way that he operates. He could be someone whose game, while it hasn’t been massively eye-catching at first-class level, could translate into something that will do good things in Test match cricket. But in terms of taking a team which looks on paper like it can win in the West Indies… and let’s face it, this team needs a win. You’re thinking to yourself, ‘I’d quite like to have had Stuart up my sleeve to play in all three Test matches and to lead what is going to be a relatively inexperienced attack’.”

Leaving out both Broad and Anderson makes Woakes the most experienced quick in England’s squad, with 42 Tests to his name. Woakes has a substantial difference between his home and away records, averaging 22.63 at home and 52.38 away, and Butcher said the idea of him being the attack leader was “a worry”.

“England’s most senior bowler in that [squad] is Chris Woakes, and Woakes was anonymous in the Ashes. I’ll hold my hands up, I thought Woakes had turned a corner with the Kookaburra, but although he was unlucky as the tour went a little bit further on, he didn’t dispel any of the issues that people have had with his performances overseas, and that’s a worry. He’s now our main guy on the trip.”

Andrew Strauss, interim managing director of England men’s cricket, was key in making the decision to drop Broad and Anderson. Strauss, who formerly held the role full time, as well as being a past England Test captain, is noted for a succession of ruthless calls, with England sidelining both Broad and Anderson from their ODI plans under his watch. Butcher felt that this decision wasn’t necessarily a final one.

“The door’s been left open by the comments that Andrew Strauss has made,” he said. “And I hesitate to have a go at Strauss’s logic because he’s been here before as a captain and as a director of cricket, and both times he’s made big calls over senior players, and both times he’s been vindicated, in the end. What I would say is, the position with James and Stuart is very different to any Strauss has made before, because Broad and Anderson are still the outstanding bowlers in England’s line-up, if you take Mark Wood out of the equation, and Mark Wood will play.

“As I said before, I can understand the logic of giving Jimmy the trip off. West Indies pitches, where you have to hit the pitch hard, he’d be able to cope with it no problem, but it seems like unnecessary mileage on his clock. Whereas for Stuart, the case for him being there, was compelling, to prove that he still has the desire, to prove to everybody else, ‘listen, I’m a Test match cricketer, I’m one of the best there’s ever been, and I damn well deserve to be wearing the shirt’.”

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