Sam Curran and Chris Woakes recalled by England for Oval Test; Mitchell Marsh replaces Travis Head for Australia
Saturday 14 September 2019 11:52, UK
Jason Roy has been dropped by England and Ben Stokes will play as a specialist batsman in the final Ashes Test against Australia at The Oval.
Stokes was limited to 10.5 overs at Old Trafford last week after injuring his right shoulder in Australia's first innings and will not bowl in south London from Thursday as England look to earn a 2-2 series draw.
Sam Curran has been drafted in as a fourth seam-bowling option to cover, meaning batsman Roy - who has scored only 110 runs in the series at an average of 13.75 with a top score of 31 - makes way, while Chris Woakes has also been recalled in place of fellow paceman Craig Overton.
England captain Joe Root said: "It's always tough to leave guys out but Stokesy picked up a shoulder injury in the last game.
"He won't be able to bowl the overs you'd normally expect him to and I think it would be a risk to take him into the game as a fourth seamer.
"He might be able to bowl a couple of overs here and there but his batting is, as this series has shown, a massive part of this side and he rightly deserves to be in the team as a top-four batter.
"With that we've had to change the balance of the side and Jason is the unfortunate one to miss out.
"Jason has had an opportunity to come in and play Test cricket and get a feel for it and it has not quite gone as he would have liked, but I'm sure he'll go away and work extremely hard and come back again.
"That's what you expect of guys when they get left out. I'm sure he'll have that attitude. He'll want to prove a point and get himself back into the side.
"He's very aware of where he's at and what he needs to do to get himself in the best place to perform in Test cricket."
Australia - who retained the Ashes with a 185-run victory in Manchester on Sunday - will make at least one alteration at The Oval, with all-rounder Mitchell Marsh coming in for batsman and part-time spinner Travis Head.
Peter Siddle has been named in a 12-man squad, and will be hoping to break up the pace attack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.
"The bowlers bowled a lot of overs [at Old Trafford] so bringing in Mitchell will ease a lot of the workload on them," said Australia captain Tim Paine at his press conference on Wednesday.
"It was a tough call on Travis, who has made a good start to his Test career, but we just want a bit more bowling depth on what looks like a really good wicket and to be able to look after out big fast bowlers.
"Mitchell also has two Test hundreds so we have full faith in him with the bat."
Paine's side lead the series 2-1 and will now be looking to win the Ashes series outright for the first time in England since 2001, when Steve Waugh captained the Baggy Greens to a 4-1 success.
Watch day one of the fifth Test live on Sky Sports The Ashes and Sky Sports Main Event from 10am on Thursday.
You can also follow over-by-over commentary and in-play clips on our rolling blog on skysports.com and the Sky Sports app.
