Moores against squad rotation

Head coach Peter Moores is against resting his key performers © Getty Images

England head coach Peter Moores has ruled out the prospect of easing England’s leading players through the next couple of weeks to ensure they are fully fit for the Test and one-day series against South Africa.

The first of four Test matches against South Africa, number two in the world Test rankings, starts at Lord’s on July 10.

However before then they must complete the final three matches of the NatWest Series against New Zealand and the standard of the current opposition has ensured Moores will not be tempted to rest key players.

“I don’t think you can do that, not against New Zealand because they’re too good a team,” stressed Moores.

“I think they’re very competitive and they’ll be desperately keen to try to bounce back so I don’t think you can do that.

“But I do think we have to be sensible about because when it comes to things like backs and joints you’ve got to be careful because if you get a serious injury it could be long term.”

Moores’ desire to beat New Zealand, ranked as the third best one-day side in the world, perhaps stems from the fact England only have this series and a further five-match series against South Africa before they depart for the Champions Trophy in Pakistan in September.

Without a triumph in any global event in their history, England are hoping momentum can transform them into major challengers if they can be successful this summer.

“We’re going all right at the moment,” enthused Moores. “We’re moving forward, we’re enjoying playing one-day cricket.

“The batters are playing well, we’re seeing aggressive cricket but solid cricket as well, playing into good areas down the ground, playing strong shots.

“We’ve seen the bowling unit mature and from a fielding point of view we’ve worked really hard. We keep moving it forward.

“New Zealand are third in the world and they got here playing good one-day cricket so winning this series would be a really good feather in our cap.

“We’ve also moved from number eight to number six in the rankings so we’re going in the right direction and we’ve got the great challenge of playing South Africa coming up - if we come through that we will go very confidently into a global tournament.”