England on Friday named a strong 15-man squad for the Twenty20 World Cup, recalling paceman Tymal Mills and Chris Woakes for the global tournament in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The squad quashed speculation of Ben Stokes return, who was not considered for selection. There is no place in the squad either for Joe Root, England's Test captain. Mills last played international cricket in February 2016 but has been included on the back of some excellent performances for Sussex in the T20 Blast and Southern Brave, the inaugural winners of The Hundred.
"Tymal Mills deserves his inclusion and has demonstrated over the past couple of years, but particularly this summer that he has all skills to succeed at this level," Chris Silverwood, head coach, said. "Woakes played in the T20I series against Sri Lanka earlier this summer, his first T20 action for England since November 2015, and did well, conceding 3.28 runs an over across his two matches. There are three left-arm fast-bowlers in the squad. Mills is joined by Sam Curran and David Willey. Willey's inclusion is particularly pleasing because he missed out on the 2019 50-over World Cup squad at the last moment, having been a key member of the team for the previous four years. Mark Wood and Chris Jordan are the other fast-bowlers included. The absence of Stokes was expected. He is currently on an indefinite break from cricket for wellbeing reasons and has played just three ODIs, against Pakistan, this summer. Indications are that Stokes is unlikely to be part of the Ashes squad this winter either. Root's omission is not much of a surprise either. He has not been part of England's T20 plans for a while and last played a T20I match in the summer of 2019.
Squad: Eoin Morgan (c), Moeen Ali, Jonathan 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
Reserves: Tom Curran, Liam Dawson, James Vince
