Kevin Pietersen to wield influence as England rests other Ashes stars for ODIs

ENGLAND have named an unfamiliar squad for the one-day series against Australia, leaving out several members of the Ashes-winning squad.

Kevin Pietersen

ENGLAND have named an unfamiliar but exciting squad for the one-day series against Australia, leaving out several key members of the Ashes-winning squad.

Eoin Morgan will be captain while Alastair Cook rests for the entire five-match program, along with four other senior members of the Ashes squad.

Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Graeme Swann and Ian Bell have also been granted time to recover, opening the way for three uncapped one-day players in Michael Carberry, Jamie Overton and Chris Jordan. Ben Stokes and Luke Wright are recalled as forceful all-rounders.

Jonathan Trott, Joe Root and Kevin Pietersen will not travel to Dublin for the one-off game against Ireland next Tuesday that precedes the Australia series. Gary Ballance, Danny Briggs and James Taylor have been included as replacements for that fixture only. Those missing on merit include Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes and Jade Dernbach.

Reaction on Twitter was mixed. Critics feel that the games have been devalued by the omission of so many contracted players. Supporters are happy to see fresh faces rather than tired legs. Michael Vaughan suggested, perhaps tongue in cheek, that spectators should receive a partial refund.

For right or wrong, England rarely pick a full-strength one-day team outside tournaments. This time, the biggest surprise is probably that Pietersen, their biggest box-office draw, has been included despite saying recently that he will need to manage a susceptible knee for the rest of his career.

Pietersen is at present on holiday, but he will be in his element as the most senior figure in the squad for the Australia games surrounded by cricketers who are sure to hang on his every word. His influence when the series begins at Headingley Carnegie on September 6 may be as valuable off the field as on it.

He will certainly find some kindred attacking spirits among his new team-mates. Overton, 19, is a strapping fast bowler who bears a physical similarity to Andrew Flintoff at a similar age. He hurried the Australia batsmen during the tour match at Taunton in June and is seen as a genuine star in the making.

Jordan, 24, a pace bowler and useful lower-order batsman from Barbados, was released last season by Surrey, where a promising career had been heavily interrupted by injury. He has stayed fit and prospered with Sussex this summer, taking 72 wickets in all forms of the game.

The choice of Carberry is another pleasant surprise for the Hampshire opening batsman. He is likely to make his first Twenty20 appearance for England against Australia at the Ageas Bowl tomorrow and his selection reflects the need to find a muscular alternative at the top of the order.

With England building towards the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the series is an opportunity for newcomers to threaten the absent players. If that sounds fanciful they need only look across the dressing room to James Tredwell, who is arguably now the leading one-day off spinner ahead of Swann.

Australia lost 4-0 to England last summer in a 50-over series that was even more one-sided than the Ashes 12 months on. They were also beaten in the Champions Trophy game at Edgbaston this year and their squad includes six of the team from the fifth Test: Michael Clarke, David Warner, Shane Watson, Steve Smith, James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc.

Broad, the England Twenty20 captain, wanted to play in the internationals before his own break, though he will not enjoy being asked during media duties about post-Ashes celebrations on Sunday night when a number of players, himself reportedly included, urinated on the Kia Oval pitch. Swann admitted in his newspaper column that accounts initially in the Australian press are well founded.

Surrey, meanwhile, have received what Richard Gould, the chief executive, described as “some notes of regret from various sources in the ECB”. England, naturally, want the embarrassment to die a natural death.

The Times