Rashid gets call to join Bresnan and Shahzad for summer job

Bresnan and Shahzad have spent the winter touring Australia and the sub-continent with England, with the former helping the team win the Ashes Down Under for the first time for 24 years.

The inclusion marks a welcome return to the fold for Rashid who has not played international cricket since 2009. He earned a recall to the World Cup squad just last week but arrived too late to play in the quarter-final.

Jade Dernbach is the only uncapped player named by the selectors. The 24-year-old Surrey seamer was last week called up as a replacement in England’s World Cup squad for Michael Yardy.

The England selectors have also kept faith in Durham seamer Graham Onions who missed all of last season due to a back injury that required surgery in September.

The Ashes winner has made a quicker than expected recovery, after the initial prognosis had him sidelined for nine months, and was last month given the go-ahead to return to bowling.

Otherwise there were no major surprises in a squad that includes all 16 members of the Ashes-winning squad in Australia this winter, as well as those called up for the subsequent one-day international series and World Cup.

The squad also has room for the addition of three more players during the summer should the England bosses choose to elevate a player from the county circuit.

“The England performance squad is designed to allow the selectors to monitor the development of international players and better prepare them for the demands of the international game,” said ECB national selector Geoff Miller, ahead of Test and one-day series against Sri Lanka and India this summer.

“We can name 30 players in the squad but as we did last season have decided to keep three places vacant at this stage and will reserve the right to add additional players to the squad if merited by individual performances during the course of the season.”

England Performance Squad 2011

A Strauss (captain), J Anderson, I Bell, R Bopara, T Bresnan, S Broad, P Collingwood, A Cook, S Davies, J Dernbach, S Finn, C Kieswetter, E Morgan, G Onions, M Panesar, K Pietersen, L Plunkett, M Prior, A Rashid, A Shahzad, G Swann, J Tredwell, C Tremlett, J Trott, C Woakes, L Wright, M Yardy.