England name 15-man preliminary squad for T20 World Cup 2021

England Cricket Board (ECB) have announced their preliminary squad for the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021 set to begin on October 17 in Oman and UAE. As expected, Ben Stokes is not part of the team. The all-rounder’s has taken an indefinite break from all-forms of cricket.

In an interesting move, England have included fast bowler Tymal Mills in the squad. He last played a T20I match for England in 2017 against West Indies and has only featured in five T20Is since making his debut in 2016. The fast bowler is an X-factor player owing to his ability bowl express pace.

Also, he was seen in some good form in the T20 Blast and the Hundred, which might have tempted the selectors to include him in the 15-member squad.

Apart from Mills, Chris Woakes, David Willey, and Mark Wood are the other fast bowlers in the team.  As expected, there is no place for Test skipper Joe Root in the squad. The selectors have rather preferred the explosive batting of Liam Livingstone instead. The 27-year-old is in form of his life and will shoulder the middle-order with skipper Eoin Morgan and Sam Billings.

The top three spots will be occupied by Jos Buttler, Jason Roy, and Dawid Malan. As expected, England have gone with only one specialist spinner in Adil Rashid with Moeen Ali predominately playing as an all-rounder.

 England squad for T20 World Cup: Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Tymal Mills, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Traveling Reserves: Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, James Vince