England head to Sri Lanka shortly for a tough tour consisting of three Tests, five ODIs and curiously … no T20Is.
Opening batsman Rory Burns returns to the squad after injury whilst there are also recalls for batsman James Hildreth and spin bowler Ollie Rayner, both of whom debuted last year. Dawid Malan, Toby Roland-Jones and Tom Curran, all capped at either ODI or T20I level, earn their first call ups to the Test squad. Uncapped John Simpson provides wicketkeeping cover for the second successive winter but disappointingly the in-form Liam Livingstone is unavailable through injury.
The full Test squad is as follows:
Mark Stoneman, Daniel Bell-Drummond, Ben Duckett, Joe Root (c), Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow (w), Adil Rashid, Liam Norwell, Ben Coad, Jack Leach, Rory Burns, James Hildreth, Dawid Malan, John Simpson (w), Ollie Rayner, Toby Roland-Jones, Tom Curran