And breathe. England’s makeshift selection panel of Andrew Strauss, James Taylor, Paul Collingwood, Ben Stokes and Joe Root made waves with the announcement of England’s 16-man squad for the upcoming tour of the West Indies, leaving out eight players who were part of the Ashes squad including England’s two greatest Test wicket-takers, James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

Here are five talking points from the squad announcement:

A new start

The joint omission of Anderson and Broad caused the biggest stir. Both had good Ashes series and Anderson in particular has looked close to his best over the past 12 months, while Broad was indisputably England’s bowler of 2020 and is closer in age to Chris Woakes than Anderson. It is also some call to axe the pair under the interim leadership of Paul Collingwood, rather than waiting to make a decision once a new coach is put in place, but if there’s one clear message from this squad announcement it’s that this is a fresh start.

Aside from Anderson and Broad, there are some interesting calls that hint at a desire to move on swiftly from the last 12 months of the Chris Silverwood. Six others in the Ashes squad have been dropped, including three of the four players to bat in the top three.

Despite not bowling a ball in the Ashes, Dom Bess has been usurped by Matt Parkinson who himself didn’t bowl a ball for England Lions against Australia A. Dan Lawrence didn’t get a game Down Under despite the travails of those above him and was seemingly way down the pecking order; what’s changed to see them both back in contention?

Squad make-up is not watertight

Part of the job in selecting a squad for an overseas tour is identifying which players will best help the team achieve on-field success. Another aspect of the job is to ensure that all bases are covered in the event of injury or illness.

England are taking a surprisingly small squad to the Caribbean, especially considering the times we’re living in and arguably, they do not have all those bases covered. They have picked just two openers in the squad – a repeat of what they did in the Caribbean three years ago where they picked, dropped and recalled Keaton Jennings over the course of the three Tests. It is unclear what England would do if Crawley or Lees were unavailable for a Test.

There are few obvious candidates to bat at three either, nor is there much cover in the middle order if the gloves are handed to Jonny Bairstow rather than Ben Foakes.

Have the red-ball and white-ball groups ever been so different?

The exclusions of Dawid Malan and Jos Buttler mean that there are even fewer cross-format players in the squad than there were in Australia. Only a handful, at best, of this 16-man squad would make England’s current first-choice T20I side.

Andrew Strauss is reportedly keen to split the head coach’s job into two roles, is this squad announcement a sign that he is also keen to separate the playing groups more than we’ve recently been used to?

Despite the headlines, the team could be quite similar to what we saw in Australia

It is entirely possible that Lees is the only new face in the XI for the first Test. If Bairstow is handed the gloves, England could feasibly field a side of: Crawley, Lees, Root, Stokes, Lawrence, Pope, Bairstow, Woakes, Wood, Robinson, Leach. All of a sudden, that’s not that different to what we saw in Australia, is it?

One more chance for Pope

Of the batters to endure particularly grim Ashes series, Pope is the only survivor. Despite averaging 11 in Australia and his career average dropping below 29 after 23 Tests, England have stuck by him and resisted the temptation to pick someone like James Vince at five or six.

As his dominant first-class record attests, he is clearly an extremely talented batter but one who has regressed at Test level in recent times. You get the sense that this could be a career-defining series one or way or the other for the Surrey 24-year-old.

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