England’s young guns will be given the chance to make a claim against Proteas

ENGLAND coach Trevor Bayliss says the youngsters picked for this week’s T20 series against South Africa have a chance to stake a claim for a place in the 50-over team for the 2019 World Cup.

Lancashire’s highly-promising all-rounder Liam Livingstone is one of five uncapped players in the squad that will contest three T20s against the Proteas starting at the Ageas Bowl on Wednesday – but England are still odds-on favorites to win the series with the latest Cricket bets.

Hampshire leg-spinner Mason Crane, Middlesex batsman Dawid Malan, Surrey bowler Tom Curran and Somerset seamer Craig Overton are the others after England decided to rest Moeen Ali, Jake Ball, Adil Rashid, Joe Root and Ben Stokes for the matches in Southampton, Taunton and Cardiff.

Bayliss was speaking in the wake of England’s shock Champions Trophy semi-final defeat by Pakistan last week. And the Australian has told the newcomers to the T20 squad that they will have a chance to gatecrash the one-day team ahead of the next major tournament in England.

“I think we’d be remiss if we just said these 15 or 16 guys are going to go to the World Cup in two years time,” said Bayliss. “We’ve got to be sensible about it and if there is someone else who deserves to be in the team then we’ve got to look for that.

“We’ve got the Test guys having a rest for these T20s which allows us to play some new guys and you never know, if one or two of them come up with the goods, they could find themselves in the team in two years’ time.”

Meanwhile, Joe Root has assured England fans there will be no hangover into the rest of the summer from the crushing disappointment of last week’s Champions Trophy exit.

Root cut a distraught figure after England blew their chance to close in on a first major 50-over title by falling victim to a shock semi-final defeat by Pakistan in Cardiff.

After this week’s three T20s against South Africa, a series Root has been rested for, England’s focus will turn to the four Tests against the Proteas starting at Lord’s on July 6.

That will be Root’s first game as Test captain following his appointment as Alastair Cook’s successor earlier this year.

And the Yorkshireman is in no mood to enter the second half of the summer on a downer despite the frustration of this week’s Champions Trophy failure.

New England Test captain Joe Root

“I wouldn’t say I’m shell-shocked, just very disappointed,” said Root. “We’ve played some really good cricket throughout the whole of this summer and it was frustrating not being able to do it in this match.

“It doesn’t feel great at the minute but there’s a lot of cricket still to play this summer and we’ve got to make sure we’re right for that.”