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The selection panel of the England men’s cricket team has named a 16-player squad for the first two Ashes Tests against Australia. The side is unchanged from the one-off four-day Test match against Ireland, which is currently being played at the Lord’s in London.
England are scheduled to take on Australia in the first of five Ashes Test matches from June 16 onwards, at Edgbaston in Birmingham. Shortly afterwards, the action will move to Lord’s in London for the second Test, which will begin from June 28.
According to the website of England Cricket, the players will report to Birmingham on June 12, Monday, four days before the first Ashes Test begins. Meanwhile, their first practice session is due to start on June 13, Tuesday at Edgbaston.
Meanwhile, at Lord’s in London, during their first Test match of the cricket summer, England are bossing the play versus Ireland. On day 1, they bowled out the Irish for a paltry score of 172 runs. Stuart Broad, the veteran fast bowler, picked up his 20th five-wicket haul in 162 Tests to put the English team in a wonderful position early in the game.
In their batting effort, England were ruthless from ball one as their openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett provided a fast start to the team at the top of the order. After their 109-run stand was broken, Ollie Pope and Joe Root took the Ireland bowling attack to the cleaners for most of day 2 to help the English put on a total 524/4 declared.
Pope ended up scoring his first double century in Test cricket, finishing with 205 runs, while Duckett got 185 runs on the board. Crawley and Root put together half-centuries of their own too. As of current writing, Ireland were struggling with the bat, second time of asking, in their pursuit of avoiding an innings defeat.
The 16-player squad for the first two Ashes Tests for England:
Ben Stokes (c), James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Stuart Broad, Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson, Joe Root, Josh Tongue, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
