England announced their 17-man squad for the Ashes 2021-22, scheduled to start in the second week of December.
The statement by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rated the squad under the leadership of Joe Root as the “strongest available”, but the lack of experience with as many as 10 members visiting Australia for an Ashes series for the first time, will be a cause of concern for English fans.
Apart from skipper Root, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, Rory Burns and Dawid Malan form the core of the batting unit with the likes of Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed and Dan Lawrence adding youth quotient to it.
The experienced duo of James Anderson and Stuart Broad leads the bowling group with the likes of Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood and Craig Overton forming the overall strength of the pace battery.
Chris Woakes is the only pace-bowling all-rounder in the squad.
There are only two spinners in the squad in the form of Jack Leach and Dom Bess, both of whom did not play even a single game in the recently-concluded English summer.
As expected the duo of Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes have not made their return to the squad and it will be the second consecutive away Ashes series that Stokes would be missing.
There were a lot of uncertainties surrounding the fate of the Ashes 2021-22 in wake of stringent Covid-19 containment measures in place in Australia, but Cricket Australia’s move to address the England players' concerns helped break the deadlock followed by a green light for the tour by the ECB.
The first Test of the Ashes series is scheduled to start on December 09 at the Gabba in Brisbane.