Page last updated at 12:13 GMT, Saturday, 3 October 2008 13:13 UK
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England Announce 15-man squad
England ODI celebrating Natwest Series victory
England's selectors have named a 15-man squad for the Stanford Super Series
and the seven-match one-day tour of India that gets underway in November,
with Ryan Sidebottom earning a recall after an injury disrupted season. He
comes in to replace Tim Bresnan, although will have to pass a fitness test,
in a squad that is otherwise unchanged from the team that defeated South
Africa 4-0 in the recent NatWest Series.
The fact that England have named the same squad for both the Stanford Series
and the one-dayers is clearly in the interests of team unity, even though a
player like Alastair Cook, who rarely clears the ropes in any form of the
game, can hardly expect to feature in the big-money match.
Only players who are in the final eleven will be given a shot at winning a
personal fortune of US$1 million, but the remaining four squad members will
share another US$1 million between them, while the backroom staff will be
well paid as well. The weakening pound is currently making it an even more
enticing prospect. In the three months since the match was announced, the
potential prize has gone up by more than £50,000.
"The selectors would like to congratulate the team on an outstanding performance
in beating such a talented one-day side as South Africa so comprehensively,"
said national selector Geoff Miller. "It bodes extremely well for the tough
challenges that lie ahead this winter and is reflected in our decision to
retain the bulk of the squad from this summer's NatWest Series for both the
Stanford Super Series and the tour of India."
Steve Harmison, who only came out of ODI retirement last month, is now widely
expected to feature in the match. Miller confirmed that Harmison had originally
said he didn't want to be considered for the Stanford match - for fear of
being seen hunting riches - but said the final selection was based purely on
picking the best squad. "We picked the side on cricketing factors, there were
no financial implications at all," he said.
The 15-man squad is also a clear shift away from the Twenty20 specialists who
were chosen for the ICC World Twenty20 last September. On that occasion the
likes of Darren Maddy, Jeremy Snape, James Kirtley and Chris Schofield made
the side but were predictably out of their depth. This time around there was
a clamour from some quarters to include Graham Napier, who hit 152 against
Sussex in the Twenty20 Cup this season, but England have stuck with the tried
and tested.
"We talked about it in another long meeting, as they always are," said Miller.
"The side that we've picked has got Twenty20 specialists as well. It's not a
matter of picking specialists, we have a side that can compete in ODIs and
Twenty20."
Squad for Stanford and India ODIs: Kevin Pietersen (c), James Anderson, Ian Bell
, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Andrew Flintoff,
Stephen Harmison, Samit Patel, Matt Prior (wk), Owais Shah, Graeme Swann, Ryan
Sidebottom, Luke Wright
