England’s provisional squad for T20 World Cup 2026 announced:Jofra Archer returns despite injury; Liam Livingstone and Jamie Smith dropped

With the T20 World Cup 2026 heading closer, England Cricket has unveiled the provisional squad for the ICC tournament. The T20 WC clashes will kick off on 7 February, and the English team has almost finalised the 15 players that’ll represent them in the tournament. However, it’s not just the T20 World Cup provisional squad that England Cricket revealed. Along with the team for the ICC tournament, the England Cricket Board has also come out with the teams for the white-ball tour of Sri Lanka, which includes three One-Day Internationals (ODIs), and three IT20s. Notably, the 15-member squad for the Men’s IT20, Sri Lanka Tour provisional ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is the same. England’s 15-player provisional team for ICC Men’s T20 World Cup England provisional squad for T20 WC: Harry Brook (Captain), Rehan Ahmed, Jofra Archer, Tom Banton, Jacob Bethell, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Liam Dawson, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Josh Tongue, Luke Wood Notably, in this squad, Jofra Archer will not play in the men’s IT20 and Sri Lanka tour. The pace bowler is continuing to recover from a side strain, yet was included for the tournament in India and Sri Lanka in February and March. Notably, Archer was ruled out of the series because of the side injury he sustained in the third Test in Adelaide. However, he is set to play in the T20 WC as per the update from the England Cricket Board. Meanwhile, Brydon Carse has only been included in the team for the Sri Lanka tour, so he will potentially not get to play in the ICC tournament. Jamie Smith and Liam Livingstone dropped from the T20 World Cup squad. Jamie Smith has been dropped from the World Cup and the preceding tour of Sri Lanka after a difficult Ashes series. Smith has been England’s one-day opener in their past nine matches. However, he has not played a T20 since June. The 25-year-old struggled in the one-dayers in New Zealand before the Ashes and could only accumulate one half-century in eight innings in Australia. Liam Livingstone has also been dropped. He featured in only oneAshes 2025-26 match, the 3rd Test in Adelaide, where he took 2-21 with the ball. Meanwhile, in the shortest format of cricket, he scored an unbeaten 85 runs to seal a victory in a separate T20 Blast match for his county. Josh Tongue rewarded for Ashes 2025-26 performance Pace bowler Josh Tongue, who has never played a white-ball international for England, is rewarded for his Ashes performances with inclusion in the World Cup squad. He scalped seven wickets in the Boxing Day Test against Australia, with a five-fer in the first innings.