Desperate to regain the Ashes scheduled for the end of this year, England are considering to send early a batch of approximately 25 players to Australia ahead of the official schedule. The players who represent England only in Test format are likely to travel in the first England contingent for the tour down under.
As per a Daily Telegraph report, Test specialists such as Rory Burns, Zak Crawley, and Ollie Pope are likely to board the flight with the England Lions who are scheduled to play first-class games in Australia before the start of the Ashes.
Multi-format players such as Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, and Jofra Archer can only arrive for the preparation of Ashes after their participation in the World T20 scheduled to end on November 14 if England can make it through to the finals.
On the other hand, other senior members of the side including the skipper Joe Root, James Anderson and Stuart Broad too will arrive before the white-ball starts will return from India.
England are keen to be ‘battle-hardened before the Ashes and hence they are likely to prefer playing few intra-squad matches instead of convention warm-up games.
The idea of intra-squad games has picked up pace in the last couple of years as the substandard quality of oppositions in the warm-up games before any series and then the Covid-19 related regulations have propelled sides to opt for playing among others by dividing talents in the group into two parts.
Australia had opted for similar tactics in the time leading up to the Ashes in England. In recent months, West Indies have decided to play an intr-squad game before the Test series against Sri Lanka at home. Later during the English summer, India will face India -A in England in pursuit of acclimatisation with weather conditions and preparing against quality bowling and batting combinations.
England lost the just-concluded Test series against India by 1-3 and their lack of preparation on turning pitches due to undergoing hard isolation came into the fray, although they were coming off from a series in Sri Lanka.