David Graveney Players Quotations

How we're going to manage the players through all this is something we're going to have to talk about. We have to make sure that our key guys like Freddie are fit and raring to go for the Australia and World Cup legs.

With Liam Plunkett and James Anderson performing well in Pakistan, and Simon Jones now available for selection again, the selectors feel the priority is for these players to gain as much experience of one-day cricket as possible ahead of the World Cup and as a result Darren misses out.

Although we lost the series, there were some encouraging individual performances from players who are new to test cricket and we are keen to continue their development.

Darren asked the selectors not to consider him for the tour of Pakistan for personal reasons and we respected his wishes. With Liam Plunkett and James Anderson performing well in Pakistan and Simon Jones now available for selection again, the selectors feel the priority is for these players to gain as much experience of one-day cricket as possible ahead of the World Cup.

The A tour runs simultaneously with the main tour and will be regarded as the next best players available.

In choosing our Test squad we wanted to show faith with the same group of players who have performed extremely well for England over the past two years. Although we lost the series, there were some encouraging individual performances from players who are new to Test cricket and we are keen to continue their development.