The England coach Stuart Lancaster has named his squad for the tour to New Zealand next month. The fly-half Danny Cipriani has, as expected, been included. Cipriani will likely start the first Test in the absence of Owen Farrell and Stephen Myler, who are unavailable on account of playing in Saturday’s Premiership final, and the injured George Ford.

Lancaster is without players from the Premiership finalists Saracens and Northampton, who meet just one week before the first Test on 7 June. It is widely expected that Farrell and Myler will be added to the squad at a later date, along with Chris Ashton, Brad Barritt, Alex Goode, Lee Dickson, Courtney Lawes, Ben Foden and Tom Wood.

Elsewhere in the squad there are first call-ups for the Worcester full-back Chris Pennell, Leicester’s Ed Slater, Newcastle’s prop Kieran Brookes, the Exeter front-row Luke Cowan-Dickie, Gloucester’s Henry Trinder and the Harlequins hookers Dave Ward and Joe Gray.

Jack Nowell, who started in all five of England’s Six Nations games, will miss the tour with a knee injury, while Lancaster is also without Ford, Christian Wade and Tom Croft. Tom Youngs will miss out for personal reasons. Chris Robshaw again captains the side.

Initial England squad

Joe Marler, Matt Mullan, Kieran Brookes, Henry Thomas, Dave Wilson, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Joe Gray, Dave Ward, Rob Webber, Dave Attwood, Joe Launchbury, Geoff Parling, Ed Slater, James Haskell, Tom Johnson, Matt Kvesic, Ben Morgan, Chris Robshaw (captain); Danny Care, Ben Youngs, Freddie Burns, Danny Cipriani, Kyle Eastmond, Manu Tuilagi, Henry Trinder, Billy Twelvetrees, Jonny May, Marland Yarde, Mike Brown, Chris Pennell.