England: Harry Brook, Dawid Malan, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler † (c), Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Adil Rashid, Gus Atkinson, Reece Topley.
New Zealand: Devon Conway, Will Young, Henry Nicholls, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham † (c), Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Kyle Jamieson, Matt Henry, Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson.
In the spiritual home of the bucket hat, a suitably-hatted Ben Stokes has a chinwag with his old skipper, Eoin Morgan, on his return to ODIs: “When I decided to step away there was a few things to consider but it’s been a while since then and as you go forward, you’re in different situations and different opportunities present themselves and you feel differently. I had conversations with Keysy [Robert Key], Motty [Matthew Mott] and Jos [Buttler], and there’s a World Cup to defend. Being involved in that 2019 period was an amazing thing to be a part of and going back and trying to defend it.”
Some team news. No Santner, Boult, Allen or Milne for New Zealand, and Bairstow and Roy will miss out for England with minor injuries. Opening in their stead is none other than Harry Brook, with Dawid Malan. And Gus Atkinson, the latest off the Surrey conveyor belt, makes his England debut
Jos Buttler, on his 33rd birthday, tosses the coin and Tom Latham calls correctly. He’s going to have a bowl. Buttler said he’d have batted had he won the toss, so everyone’s happy.
A fair few England players are reacquainting themselves with the one-day game after a lengthy absence, including Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, both of whom are making their first ODI appearances since July last year, but the most high-profile of the returnees is of course Ben Stokes, hero of 2019, who reversed his ODI retirement for this series and the World Cup.
Whether he can ever be an all-rounder again remains a doubt though, as Tanya Aldred reported from yesterday’s presser:
Afternoon everyone. And welcome to coverage of a lesser-spotted one-day international series. It’s increasingly hard to conveive that the 50-over game was English cricket’s overwhelming priority between 2015 and 2019. A mere four years later, the world champions at the format find themselves a month out from a World Cup preparing for their first ODI in six months, their entire squad having played no 50-over cricket throughout the summer due to their participation in the Hundred. How will they step up to the 300 today?
And England could do with some tuning up. Their white-ball cricket has been pretty patchy since 2022’s World T20 success, with struggles in South Africa and Bangladesh early in the year and an inability to handle New Zealand’s powerful fightback to square the recent T20 series. But any squad that has the luxury of grappling with whether to pick a talent as assured and in form as Harry Brook should have plenty to work with.
As for the Black Caps, this is their first ODI in a while too, their most recent series a 4-1 shellacking in Pakistan in May, but some of the T20 series’ stars will be augmented by the return of the likes of Tom Latham and Trent Boult. All of which makes this match and series fiendishly difficult to call. Bring it!
Play starts at 12.30pm BST.