England unchanged for Australia series

England named an unchanged squad on Monday for their five-match one-day series against Australia starting at Lord’s on Friday. The selectors retained the original 14 players who helped England beat the West Indies 2-0 in a three-match series, with one no result washout — Australia are the world’s top-ranked One-Day International team and England one-day captain Alastair Cook and all-rounder Ravi Bopara will get an early chance to face them when they play for Essex against the tourists at Chelmsford on Tuesday. England national selector Geoff Miller, announcing the squad, said on Monday: “The series win against West Indies was pleasing and we are making steady progress in one-day cricket with a sixth straight series victory on home soil. “Australia are a strong one-day side and I’ve no doubt this will be a challenging NatWest series for us and we will need to play some very good cricket over the next three weeks,” the former England off-spinner added.“Playing against the number one ranked one-day side in the world is an excellent test for us as we look to keep steadily improving ahead of next summer’s ICC Champions Trophy and the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.” Middlesex duo Steven Finn and Eoin Morgan have been released for games in Tuesday’s round of county Twenty20 matches, as has Somerset’s Craig Kieswetter. England could be forced into one change during the series with the funeral of Surrey’s Tom Maynard taking place at Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff on July 4 — the same day as the third One-Day Internaional in Birmingham. Maynard’s Surrey team-mate Jade Dernbach, a seam bowler, could be granted leave to travel to Cardiff. England squad: Alastair Cook (capt), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Craig Kieswetter (wkt), Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott Fixtures June 29: 1st ODI, Lord’s July 01: 2nd ODI, The Oval July 04: 3rd ODI, Birmingham (D/N) July 07: 4th ODI, Chester-le-Street July 10: 5th ODI, Manchester from gulfnews.com