England Ashes squad: Ollie Pope ditched as vice-captain, Will Jacks in

Although Pope made 50 and 78 in Surrey’s recent County Championship match against Warwickshire, during their latest game, against Nottinghamshire, he looked less than fluent and could have been out a couple of times on his way to a second-innings score of 41 in Surrey’s narrow loss.

England are understood to be very keen to find a way to get Bethell — who recently became England’s youngest-ever captain when he led the team in the three-match T20 series against Ireland — into the Test team and believe he is a good fit to bat in the top order. The 21-year-old all-rounder scored his first professional century against South Africa during the one-day international series earlier this month and has been moving up the order in limited-overs matches.

Bethell’s only Test match this summer was one to forget, though. He scored only 11 runs against India in the final match of the series and the England management came under fire for the lack of first-class cricket the Warwickshire batsman had played this summer.

Brook could be called upon to lead the side if Ben Stokes does not make a full recovery from injury in time for the start of the series. The England captain sustained a biceps injury after the Old Trafford Test in July and did not play at the Oval in the final Test of the series.

The 34-year-old has not played since but has recently returned to training. England are confident he will be fully fit in time for the start of the series, in Perth on November 21, but his only chance to bowl during a match before then will come during England’s warm-up match against the Lions, which starts on November 13, and there are no guarantees that he will be able to bowl in anything other than short spells.

Ryan Campbell, Durham’s head coach, recently warned that although Stokes’s return to batting in the nets is going “very well”, being able to bowl at full tilt will “take a lot longer”.

Pace bowler Mark Wood is also a concern, having not played at all this summer after undergoing knee surgery in March. He was initially targeting a return at the end of the India series but was still having issues with his right knee, pushing his return to cricket back to the end of the county season. Barring a late change for Durham’s final match of the season, this is unlikely to materialise, with England deciding to take an ultra-cautious approach to the 35-year-old’s return given how vital they believe his pace will be to England’s chances of success down under.

It is understood Wood is still experiencing swelling in his knee every time he tries to bowl but there are still two months until the start of the series. Additionally, some of the bowlers heading to the Ashes, such as Wood, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson, will travel to New Zealand midway through the white-ball tour to acclimatise before going on to Australia.

Jacks, who has not played Test cricket since December 2022 in Pakistan, will act as a second spinner behind Shoaib Bashir and an all-rounder option, although may have limited chances to play. It is unlikely that England will pick two spinners for any of the matches given the Australian conditions. For the second match at Brisbane, which is a day/night pink-ball Test, they may go with an all-seam attack. Jacks, 26, sustained a broken finger while fielding during the T20 series against South Africa and got hit on the finger again against Ireland but it is not serious and he will be fully fit for the Ashes.

England have also named their white-ball squads to play in New Zealand before the start of the Ashes, with Sam Curran and Liam Dawson both recalled to the ODI squad. Crawley has received a first T20 call-up having only previously played Tests and ODIs. Ben Duckett, Jamie Smith and Jofra Archer will only play in the three-match ODI leg of the New Zealand tour and will be rested for the T20s while Brook will captain in all the matches despite concerns about his workload.

A 16-man Lions party, which will tour Australia up until mid-December shadowing the main squad, will be named soon. It is expected to be a very strong squad acting a second team rather than a developmental side, and will include a raft of fast bowlers, including the left-armer Josh Hull and Hampshire’s Sonny Baker, who was being considered for the main Ashes squad but has h

That squad could also include the former England opener, Dom Sibley, who is the leading runscorer in Division One of the County Championship this season, as well as Somerset’s wicketkeeper-batsman James Rew, who was part of England’s Test squad for the one-off match against Zimbabwe in May, although he did not play.

Mitchell Stanley, the Lancashire fast bowler, is set to be part of the Lions squad and is understood to be highly rated by the Lions head coach Andrew Flintoff, despite the 24-year-old only having played two first-class matches. Sam Cook, who struggled in his only Test match against Zimbabwe but had a lot of success with the Kookaburra ball during the Lions tour to Australia last winter, is also likely to be included.

England can easily move players from the Lions into the Ashes squad, which has allowed them to keep their main party to an initial 16 players.

Click here to read article