{"id":387630,"date":"2026-01-02T21:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387630\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:34:13","slug":"england-announces-12-man-squad-for-sydney-test-matthew-potts-and-shoaib-bashir-likely-inclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/387630\/","title":{"rendered":"England announces 12-man squad for Sydney Test; Matthew Potts and Shoaib Bashir likely inclusions"},"content":{"rendered":"

England has announced its 12-man squad for the Sydney Test and could make as many as two changes from the team that won on Boxing Day. <\/p>\n

Paceman Gus Atkinson will miss with the hamstring injury he suffered in Melbourne, joining Jofra Archer and Mark Wood as fast bowling casualties this summer.<\/p>\n

He will be replaced by Matthew Potts, who will play his 11th Test for England.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: How ‘divine intervention’ and Langer led to Khawaja’s rebirth<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Nervous’: Why pressure on the SCG couldn’t be higher<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Technical issue’ hijacks first point of United Cup<\/a><\/p>\n

Potts took two wickets for the Lions against Australia’s Prime Minister’s XI in November.<\/p>\n

\"England's<\/p>\n

England’s Shoaib Bashir bowls during a nets session.\u00a0PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Both teams will be weighing up just how important spin will be in Sydney<\/a>, with less grass on the SCG pitch and hot temperatures expected.<\/p>\n

England has named spinner Shoaib Bashir in its squad of 12 and he could potentially make his debut on January 4.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old has been left out all summer to this point, with England instead relying on part-timer Will Jacks to increase their batting depth.<\/p>\n

Bashir would replace Jacks in the XI in all likelihood if a change is made.<\/p>\n

Australia will make England wait before confirming any changes, though Tasmanian all-rounder Beau Webster was fielding at gully during training on Friday, hinting he could potentially replace Cameron Green.<\/p>\n

Victorian Todd Murphy would likely replace Jhye Richardson in the XI if the Aussies elected to pick a specialist spinner of their own in Sydney. <\/p>\n

Outside of Adelaide, neither team has bowled much spin so far all summer.<\/p>\n

The Test will serve as a farewell match for 39-year-old batter Usman Khawaja, who has announced his retirement<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England has announced its 12-man squad for the Sydney Test and could make as many as two changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-387630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}