Pick your England team for the first test next summer

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If the WK is going to come at 6 drop, then why not pick Bates of Hampshire? I am really impressed with his glovework and though his batting, something that is considered essential for keepers in this age, is not as good as his contemporaries, his glovework alone merits selection.
 
well read has a half century today as well, i think if they go for a pure keeper itll be foster or read

on another note, all the batting spinners, are unbeaten centurions overnight as well, ali, borthwick(career best score as well) and samit, as well as rashid picking up a few wickets
 
well read has a half century today as well, i think if they go for a pure keeper itll be foster or read

on another note, all the batting spinners, are unbeaten centurions overnight as well, ali, borthwick(career best score as well) and samit, as well as rashid picking up a few wickets

I won't go back to Read. His keeping is great no doubt, but he had a fair amount of chances in tests before & never properly cemented himself as batsman.

Foster on the other hand never did get a proper run. And i've always had a theory if Flintoff was fitter & played more tests between 2001-2009, ENG would have been able to play Foster more.

This is so because a fitter Flintoff could have been played in a 4-man attack, instead of 5-man attack. Thus, Foster could have been picked for being the best keeper in ENG & we would not have wasted those years trying Geraint Jones/Tim Ambrose/early days Matt Prior - batsmen who were average keepers.

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woakes definately has something about him, from having watched him for the bears, but as beefy would say stokes has the mongrel. Agree at the moment that stokes is #1 but woakes would offer something slightly different if his form dropped and the replacement would not impact the team balance too greatly. Which imo means woakes goes on tours as a spare bowler/all rounder, to prevent a early 2000 flintoff issue of the all rounder keeping his place just purely because he is an allrounder.

Of course county 4-day matches dont show on sky, but have seen him in many live domestic limited overs for ENG & i'm always puzzled how high his averages are. He does't look ass good as his #'s show at international level TBH.

Maybe in English conditions if he bats @ 7 versus certain teams, he could be sort of useful i'd concede. But overall I don't see a real international standard all-rounder in Woakes long term.

COmpton i agree with you he is perfect for 3, however i didnt include him as i really dont see the selectors going with him. But it would make sense as otherwise its a bits and pieces selection at 3

Ye that's true. Hoping the selectors get sense & pick him though. But given how they approaching the KP situation, ECB selectors are concerning me ATM.


Again borthwick i havent seen much of the warks durham games have happened to eother not be on tv or when i cant get down there, but for me too many good judges have said he has something to dismiss it out of hand. Although to go to a football refernce many said the same of the young m.city team of like 6 years ago(swp, barton,ireland,johnson) and due to lack of wise career moves and grit they have gone into obscority/never reached the heights that they seemed destined for

ENG have never produced a leg-spinner of note in history. A bit like Australia struggling to produce good off-spinners. ENG produce good left-arm spinner & some offies - while AUS produce good leggies.

The best two performing domestic spinner before the war in Dough Wright & Tich Freeman didn't even have great careers even. So bowling leg-spin is like a poisoned chalice in our cricket history.

With Borthwick, his bowling was non existent last season in domestic cricket. He was batting higher up the order & bowling less. So when Swann shockingly retired, I don't know what prompted them to call him up - their was no domestic form to based his selection on.

They were better of playing Panesar in the dead rubber or even Tredwell.
 
couldnt agree more, was just putting reads name out there, i think foster for 2 years then buttler when he has shown some more red ball form and worked on his keeping whihc will improve leaps and bounds keeping for lanks in the cc, and by working with fabrache and moores in the hit and giggle games, and he could then be the aggresive barsmen we have been after
ambrose is an intersting one, as after he was dropped he seemed to really regress

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the idea that freddie was ever a test 6 i still find bemusing especially in that 05 series with bell and kp finding their feet, it just wouldnt happen nowadays, i thought, but it looks like it might again with ballance, stokes and a new keeper and spinner allrounder
 
[/COLOR]the idea that freddie was ever a test 6 i still find bemusing especially in that 05 series with bell and kp finding their feet, it just wouldnt happen nowadays, i thought, but it looks like it might again with ballance, stokes and a new keeper and spinner allrounder

I don't think he was ever considered a proper number 6, it was more that putting him at 6 and giles 8 gave a seam attack so strong that you could cover a weak number 6 as 500 runs in the match would give you a good chance of winning
 
the idea that freddie was ever a test 6 i still find bemusing especially in that 05 series with bell and kp finding their feet, it just wouldnt happen nowadays, i thought, but it looks like it might again with ballance, stokes and a new keeper and spinner allrounder

Overall yea, Flintoff was never an ideal # 6. But as i mentioned, he really couldn't bat lower @ his ideal # 7 position because that would have meant the balance of the team with just 4 bowlers. And, of course Flintoff body could not stand up the rigors of being in a 4-man attack.

So in a lot of ways someone like Ashley Giles played so much test, mainly to help balance out the 5-man attack.

Flintoff though could have been a good # 6 if he was fitter. I thought between the 2005 Ashes - 2006 tour to India his batting was getting to that level.

But Freddie after coming back from injuries always found it hard to get his batting form going. He usually would get back into his bowing grove much easier.
 
@War


/QUOTE

Of course county 4-day matches dont show on sky, but have seen him in many live domestic limited overs for ENG & i'm always puzzled how high his averages are. He does't look ass good as his #'s show at international level TBH.

Maybe in English conditions if he bats @ 7 versus certain teams, he could be sort of useful i'd concede. But overall I don't see a real international standard all-rounder in Woakes long term.

/QUOTE


Well thats because he is a red ball cricketer primarily, ask any bear, he bowls line and lenght naturally so like onions he gets hit in the hit and giigle, as he doesnt have the variations, for the odi t20, he would be batsmen who is the fifth bowler ala ablie morkel ( he can hit the ball long and rotates the srike well)
 
England news : England Test squad chance to reinvent | Cricket Features | England v Sri Lanka | ESPN Cricinfo

These cricinfo guys usually are on point, so I'm slightly concerned that he has Patel in his potential test squad.

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Well thats because he is a red ball cricketer primarily, ask any bear, he bowls line and lenght naturally so like onions he gets hit in the hit and giigle, as he doesnt have the variations, for the odi t20, he would be batsmen who is the fifth bowler ala ablie morkel ( he can hit the ball long and rotates the srike well)

Ye that's why i said even though I have my reservation about him, he could be useful as an all-rounder in English condition versus certain teams.
 
I actually think Patel isn't a bad shout for a test recall. He is in terrific form with the bat, and can bowl for long periods as a holding spinner which is basically what we are all asking Moeen Ali to do. The only difference is he's in form from division 1 rather than division 2 and has a fair bit of experience at test level.

I agree that there is concerns of his fitness and stature, but from some accounts he's worked hard on the former and is no where near as bad as he was.
 
i wouldnt complain about samit, mick newell may be the swinging factor having worked with him at notts

And @War woakes imo will be useful in all conditions as a bowler as he showed in sri lanka whilst leading the lions, and he plays spin pretty well now edgbaston is becoing the turning pitch of the country(look at the damage jeetan patel does)
 
Well the time for debate on the squad is over:

Cook, Ali, Anderson, Balance, Bell, Broad, Jordan, Plunkett, Prior, Robson, Root & Woakes

No Stokes, Buttler, Bairstow, Carberry or Finn

So - who is going to be twelfth man next thursday, and what would your batting order be?

Mine:

Cook
Robson
Ali
Bell
Root
Balance
Prior
Jordan
Plunkett
Broad
Anderson

Woakes

I think Plunkett's form is the reason he's in the squad and therefore should play ahead of Woakes.
 
Alastair Cook (Essex) (Capt)

Moeen Ali (Worcestershire)

James Anderson (Lancashire)

Gary Ballance (Yorkshire)

Ian Bell (Warwickshire)

Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire)

Chris Jordan (Sussex)

Liam Plunkett (Yorkshire)

Matt Prior (Sussex)

Sam Robson (Middlesex)

Joe Root (Yorkshire)

Chris Woakes (Warwickshire)

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stokes hasnt proved his fitness,

and its 2 from jordan woakes plunkett,

i for one will be pissed if woakes doesnt play as he has already missed a lot of bears games to carry drinks

my order

cook
robson
ali
bell
ballance
root
woakes
prior
jordan
broad
anderson
 
Right, we're closer now so my first test team:

Cook :c:
Robson
Root
Bell
Ballance
Morgan
Prior :wk:
Stokes
Broad
Anderson
Onions

You don't pick a spinner in May in England; even against Sri Lanka. Root can tweak it if required. I'm possibly putting too big a bowling load on Stokes, using him in a 4-man attack but our batting order absolutely needs shoring up after the Ashes.

So Ali ahead of Morgan. Jordan in for Onions and Stokes still injured so Plunkett in. I'm claiming 9/11!

Can't see what Chris Woakes is adding to the test squad at present myself.

Would expect:
Cook :c:
Robson
Ali
Bell
Root
Ballance
Prior :wk:
Broad
Jordan
Plunkett
Anderson

Woakes
 
Yet another foreign player playing for England. I dont mind players like Prior, KP and Strauss since they have not represented their nation at any level, but poaching players like Morgan, Rankin, Robson, Trott and Kieswetter, who have represented other nations in official matches of different levels is just disgusting. The ICC should follow FIFA's lead and make players unavailable for other nations once they have officially played for one.
 
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I don't think Robson considers himself "poached". He decided he wanted to play for his mother's country and resisted attempts by Australia to get him to play for them.
How can someone be a foreign player just because one parent isn't from the UK? You may have a point with KP but Sam Robson is a very bad example.
 

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