England ready for Australia in one-off T20 showdown
Monday 31 August 2015 15:51, UK
England resume hostilities with Australia in Cardiff on Monday looking ahead to the World Twenty20 rather than back at their Ashes triumph.
With the white clothing and red balls packed away for the summer, the rivals begin a fortnight of limited-overs cricket with a standalone NatWest T20 international at the SSE Swalec.
A maximum of nine players from the Test series will be on show, five in Australia's already-named XI and Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Steven Finn from the England ranks.
As such the fixture will be more about preparing for March's World T20 in India than continuing battles from England's 3-2 Test success.
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England have only seven matches in the format before the tournament begins - two of those coming after the final squad is announced.
"Our priority now turns to the T20 World Cup and driving our one-day cricket forward," said Eoin Morgan.
"We want to get a formula together before the World Cup which is obviously crucial.
"We don't play that many T20 games before the T20 World Cup and the ideal case scenario is that we don't change the ODI team that much to the T20 team.
"I'm hoping we can add five or six more names to that pool that we can stick with over the next two or three years to build something."
Australia will hand a debut to Victoria all-rounder Marcus Stoinis and have also named leg-spinner Cameron Boyce, who will be studying the weather more keenly than most having undertaken a 20,000 mile round-trip to play in one game.
Captain Steven Smith backed the 26-year-old Queenslander to hit the ground running.
"As a leg-spinner you've really got to read the batsmen quite well. I think he does that," he said.
"I think he knows when someone is going to step down at him and try hit him for six and when they're going to sit back.
"I think he adjusts his length and his pace quite well so I'm looking forward to seeing him bowl out here.
"It's going to be quite tough conditions I reckon with probably a pretty good wicket and short straight boundaries so he's going to have to adapt."
England (from): Hales, Roy, Ali, Morgan, Stokes, Buttler, Billings, Rashid, Woakes, Willey, Finn, Vince, Topley
Australia: Watson, Warner, Smith, Maxwell, M Marsh, Stoinis, Wade, Coulter-Nile, Cummins, Starc, Boyce
