Napier?
Captain average to the rescue!
Not sure what you mean by this. But Napier AFAIS is a must pick in a full strenght ENG ODI squad now.
Now that Flintoff is retired. Behind Anderson & Broad, Napier is the best qualified ODI seamer we have & as i mentioned once he recovers from his back injury - he is must pick. ENG aren't in a position to ignore such a bowler.
Poster King_Pietersen would agree.
Given his improvements, can't see how Bopara is useless, even if his England performances haven't been great, he has gone back to county cricket and worked on his game with impressive results.
Ok. So he went back to county cricket last season & when those so called impressive improvements where tested vs againts a quality PAK ODI side in the summer, nothing had changed. He was then correctly dropped by the selectorts immediately for Ian Bell (after his hundred in the C&G trophy final) & has not being picked for the series in AUS).
So like me the selectors aren't convinced by his improvement. Which is why he is not in the squad.
I think the 17-man squad is so they can try other players if need be. Some questions to be answered, least not the absence of Broad, who will replace him?
Well yes no that i think about it given that its still a lottery who will replace Broad. You probably will have to try out all of Tremlett/Shazad/Waokes who are all unproven, to see who is ODI/T20 quality.
Also i just realised where is Michael Lumb???. He is fit again & last i checked is going to be playing for queensland in the BIG Bash. Crazy that he is not in the T20 squad @ least & a joker like Tredwell is in...
War added 11 Minutes and 29 Seconds later...
Also feel sorry for Bopara, he should have gotten the chance up the order last summer that Bell always seems to get. Bopara is a quality One Day player at 3 or 4, but he's never been given a chance there, even when KP was out injured which was the time.
Not sure i'd agree with this.
Firslty over his agree some of his best ODI batting has come with him batting @ # 6 playing a sort of finisher role:
- WC 07 innings vs PAK
- O7 ODI vs India @ Old Trafford
- 1st ODI vs PAK this summer (although id say PAK didn't start playing proper ODI cricket until the middle of that series)
Plus of course lets not forget he had an extended period opening, which is pretty much the place the bat in ODIs & T20s & he failed to capitalise in that role. Something other middle-order bats by trait like M Waugh, Watson, Dilshan, Tendy, Lara (for a period), Chanderpaul, Astle for eg have done over the years in ODIs.
War added 8 Minutes and 0 Seconds later...
Stability if it's a proven player, sure. I mean, I wouldn't drop a Pietersen, Swann or Anderson no matter how bad they are in this series, but that's not the same with a player who's just coming into the team and hasn't proven their ability yet. I mean sure, Davies might come in and be brilliant, but I just think this close to the WC, why not take a backup? There's no other position in that team which isn't covered by at least one backup player in that squad, so why isn't the WK? And like I said, Kieswetter has been in excellent form in Australia too, so it's not like he's still in the poor form of the middle part of last season.
Ye. Plus i wouldn't say he was out of form really if you think about it.
Its just that top quality AUS pace attack @ the back end of the ODI series with Tait bowling as well as he ever bowled, exposed his technical flaw to inswingers & he didn't adjust. Which is no shame since the way Tait was bowling i doubt any other international opener would have done better, even with a perfect technique.
So really Kieswetter should have gotten the following ODI series vs PAK to redeem himself or fail, but they dropped him way too quick.
Davies had a decent but unspectacular series vs PAK in the ODIs/T20s. At his best he wouldn't outscore Strauss in the power-play overs. So for me in a full strenght ENG ODI top 6:
Strauss
Kieswetter
Bell
KP
Colly
Morgan
We can afford to have a man like Kieswetter to go out with license to go ballistic in the pwer play overs, with the kind of batting depth to come behind him.