 Originally 17 players where chosen for the tour, but this was rapidly reduced to 16 when Johnny Wardle was sacked by Yorkshire.He responded with a series of newspaper articles highly critical of Headingley politics and was de-selected for the tour, though he went to Australia as a journalist.Wardle was a real loss, a slow left arm bowler who could bowl Chinamen and reverse googlies and had been lethal in Australia and New Zealand in 1954–55 and South Africa in 1956-57.