England captain Eoin Morgan has made it clear that the hosts will not field a depleted side in any of the remaining three matches of the ongoing five-match series against West Indies.
The all-format England players have featured heavily this summer which included a full-fledged series against South Africa, the Champions Trophy and the series against West Indies. And with the ninth-ranked West Indies not expected to pose much of a challenge, there were speculations that the likes of Joe Root, Chris Woakes, Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow would be rested ahead of the all-important Ashes Down Under. However, Morgan has insisted that the team had pre-planned that none of the first team players will be rested and said that the team could consider resting the players during the T20I series in Australia.
“We’re going to play our best team in this series,” he said. “We feel given they will have the whole of October off, we have planned for this pretty much since the lead-in to the Champions Trophy after which all them were rested for the South Africa T20 series barring Jonny Bairstow, who was playing for an opportunity more than anything else.
“All the guys have the month of October off and then obviously a long winter’s tour of Australia where at the back end of that there could be an opportunity in the T20 tri-series where potentially we can take a look at guys being rested,” he added.
Citing the unexpected loss in the semifinal of the Champions Trophy against the lowest-ranked team in the tournament and eventual winners Pakistan, Morgan said:
“We want to play the best team to win a particular game. One of the areas we struggled in the Champions Trophy was taking early wickets, particularly losing Chris Woakes in the first game. Also, a fully fit and firing David Willey, one of his strengths with the new ball is taking wickets and is something we can work on in this series.” Morgan noted.