The problem with being close but not close enough
Steven Finn has been picked in the England ODI and T20’s squads for the forthcoming games against India as he was earlier in the season against Sri Lanka, he has also been a regular in the test squad this summer. Apart from one Test against Sri Lanka when Tremlett and Bresnan were unfit and the Ireland ODI he has yet to be selected. It’s often the problem with being close to the team and yet not a starter that a season can become disrupted, it would be fair to say his season has being disrupted considerably. Whenever Finn has been selected for Middlesex he has performed particularly well and by accounts has improved considerably since last winter’s ashes. I don’t have any problem with England not selecting him if they think there are better players but I do disagree with selecting him in an ODI squad if it is simply as a backup to the other players and they’re not expecting him to be a frontline player. The current ODI squad has Anderson, Bresnan, Broad, Dernbach and Swann in it and all are likely to start the games so why bother selecting Finn when he has no chance of playing under normal circumstances – surely he would be better off playing a county match and being called up if there was an injury. Personally I would propose a rotation policy on the squad – Anderson, Bresnan, Broad and Swann have all had a busy summer, so why not rest a couple of them for a couple of games. It would be better off for all concerned if there was a working squad of 12 and split the ODI series in two.
Give Buttler the go in the last 10
Samit Patel and Ravi Bopara both struggled the other day in the t20 International against India coming in at 5 and 6 and needing to accelerate straight away. Neither bat there for their county and as such I have a degree of sympathy with their situation. This is why it would have been nice to see Jos Buttler come in at one of these positions as he is a clean hitter used to coming in towards the end of the innings at Somerset. England seems to resist any temptation to change from their initial plan which I think is a fault of the current ODI team.
Breslad not an opener
Tim Bresnan has been opening the bowling in the T20 and ODI's of recent times and I don't like it. By definition the opening bowler should be a wickettaker yet Bresnan has the worst of all the England bowlers strike rates and a distinctly poor average to go with it. I can see why he gets selected as he is a combative player and is a decent no.8 but don't give him the new ball. In fact in games where Broad and Swann are playing I wouldn't select Bresnan.
ICC Test XI
The ICC recently came out with their Test Xi for the last year and generally it wasn’t the worst selection I have seen from the ICC, although I did have a couple of question marks about it. Somehow they managed to select Kumar Sangakkara as the Wicketkeeper which seemed a bit strange given the fact he didn’t even keep during the period. What’s even stranger was the performance of Matt Prior who comfortably outshone any other keeper during the period. In a direct comparison to Sangakkara we can see quite how far he was ahead.
Matt Prior 741 @ 57 48c1s; 7 wins, 3 draws, 2 defeats
Kumar Sangakkara 412 @ 45.77 0c0s; 5 draws, 1 defeat
Kumar Sangakkara 412 @ 45.77 0c0s; 5 draws, 1 defeat
But hey ho those ICC chiefs know best. It was probably unfair on Ian Bell also given the year he had but in fairness if you had to select two English batsmen they got the right two in Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook. Stuart Broad was the one English selection I thought was questionable given he missed most of the ashes and performed poorly with the ball with the exception of the last Indian series.
Useless stuff
Rikki Clarke has more catches in CC1 this season than teammate and wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose 35-32, both in 13 matches. Clarke also has 41 wickets, Ambrose has 0 obviously.
Jonathan Trott is still yet to hit a six in either test or one day international cricket. He does though have 3 in T20 cricket. Is this current series a chance to put the record straight?
Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow both have one game to get to the magical 1000 runs in county cricket this season. Root, 874 runs and Bairstow, 946 runs, are potential England players of the future but both could be plying their trade in division two next year as Yorkshire fail to live upto last seasons performances.
No comments:
Post a Comment