Senior men will not play in Canberra

ENGLAND have resisted calls to send senior players for a pink ball practice match ahead of the second Ashes Test - passing up the chance to spend more time in the middle, writes Rory Dollard.

- Rory Dollard

A slipshod two-day defeat in the series opener at Perth left an 11-day gap in the tourists’ schedule before the day/night Test match in Brisbane and opened up the option of using next weekend's England Lions fixture in Canberra as a tuneup for the first team.

Former captain Michael Vaughan said it would be “amateurish” not to send key men to the capital to experience a floodlit fixture against the Prime Minister's XI and head coach Brendon McCullum, pictured, suggested he would be mulling over the possibility.