Eight nations represented in Martin Johnson's England squad

Martin Johnson's controversial decision to name a multi-national World Cup training squad has been criticised by one of the biggest casualties of the policy.

Luke Narraway captained England against the Barbarians at Twickenham less than a month ago but could not break into a 45-man party that contained 13 overseas-born players.

Narraway missed out to Leicester's New Zealand-born No ?8 Thomas Waldrom, who discovered he was eligible for England midway through the season.

The Gloucester skipper, who has been in prime form this season, took to Twitter to vent his frustrations at being overlooked for Waldrom. Narraway posted: "Good luck to Thomas the tank and his English nan. notbittermuch."

The England squad Johnson named yesterday features players born in eight different countries. Waldrom is joined in the England squad by three other New Zealand-born players in Dylan Hartley, Shontayne Hape and Riki Flutey.

Saracens lock Mouritz Botha joins fellow South Africans Hendre Fourie and Matt Stevens, who has returned to the senior England squad after serving a two-year ban for cocaine use.

Manu Tuilagi (Samoa), Joe Simpson (Australia), Delon Armitage (Trinidad), Alex Corbisiero (United States), Simon Shaw (Kenya) and Matt Banahan (Jersey) have also been included.

Johnson defended his decision and insisted the only message it sent to young English players was the need to continually strive for improvement. "There are a lot of good players coming through the academies," said Johnson.

"If you want to play for England, play well in the Premiership and be good enough to come in here because it is a competitive place."

Meanwhile, Fiji's rugby chiefs have turned to former great Pio Tikoisuva to steer them through the World Cup as chief executive officer of the Fiji Rugby Union.

The FRU board yesterday named Tikoisuva as acting CEO and said that he would stay in the post until after the September and October tournament in New Zealand.

SQUAD

FORWARDS: Mouritz Botha (Saracens), George Chuter (Leicester Tigers), Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers), Alex Corbisiero (London Irish), Tom Croft (Leicester Tigers), Louis Deacon (Leicester Tigers), Paul Doran-Jones (Northampton Saints), Nick Easter (Harlequins), Hendre Fourie (Sale Sharks), Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints), James Haskell (Unattached), Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints), Lee Mears (Bath Rugby), Lewis Moody (Bath Rugby), Tom Palmer (Stade Francais), Tim Payne (London Wasps), Chris Robshaw (Harlequins), Simon Shaw (London Wasps), Andrew Sheridan (Sale Sharks), Matt Stevens (Saracens), Steve Thompson (London Wasps), Thomas Waldrom (Leicester Tigers), David Wilson (Bath Rugby), Tom Wood (Northampton Saints), Joe Worsley (London Wasps).BACKS: Delon Armitage (London Irish), Chris Ashton (Northampton Saints), Matt Banahan (Bath Rugby), Danny Care (Harlequins), Mark Cueto (Sale Sharks), Toby Flood (Leicester Tigers), Riki Flutey (London Wasps), Ben Foden (Northampton Saints), Shontayne Hape (London Irish), Charlie Hodgson (Saracens), Ugo Monye (Harlequins), Charlie Sharples (Gloucester Rugby), Joe Simpson (London Wasps), James Simpson-Daniel (Gloucester Rugby), David Strettle (Saracens), Mike Tindall (Gloucester Rugby), Manusamoa Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers), Richard Wigglesworth (Saracens), Jonny Wilkinson (Toulon), Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers).