England selection
announcements have been rather predictable in recent years, but the squad today
announced for the tour of India was eagerly awaited, and did not disappoint
with a number of surprises.
The omission of Kevin
Pietersen grabbed the headlines, but in reality it appears that the issues
between Pietersen, his England teammates and the team management are some
distance from being resolved. It is believed that some members of the team are
opposed to his potential return, and it has also been reported that Pietersen
himself still feels that he has been treated unfairly. Perhaps the issue would
be solved most easily were the ball to be put firmly in Pietersen’s court -
allow him to apologise properly to everybody, including the fans, and drop his
supposed demands for an investigation into the alleged involvement of England
players in a parody Twitter account, before kissing and making up.
The selection of an opener to
replace the retired Andrew Strauss must have been a close call, and in the end
it has been decided to take both young Yorkshire opener Joe Root and Somerset’s
Nick Compton.
Root is an impressive
character, and clearly an extremely talented cricketer. But there must be a
worry that this is a year too early for him. 2012 was the first season in which
he has been a heavy scorer for his county, and his runs came in Division Two of
the Championship. It could be argued that, in the absence of both Strauss and
Pietersen, England need to find a Michael Hussey instead - a batsman who can come into international
cricket late, but hit the ground running straight away. Compton, who, after
struggling to live up to the family name early in his career has been the best England-available
batsman in Division One for the last two seasons, would be the prime candidate
to offer that. Michael Carberry, who
played a Test in Bangladesh in 2010, can count himself unlucky to have missed
out, but in the end simply didn’t bang the door down enough this season. Root
and Compton will surely both get opportunities in the warm-up matches, and it
might eventually be those that determine who walks out with Alastair Cook at
Ahmedabad.
The middle order places are
also intriguing. Eoin Morgan has struggled for runs in first-class cricket, and
did nothing of note in the small number of Championship games he played for
Middlesex this year. However, England like what they see in one-day cricket and
he is the closest they can get to an X-Factor player who can turn a game on its
head in the absence of Pietersen. Although the tour of the UAE early this year
would suggest the contrary, Morgan has a game which should be well suited to
Asian conditions. He hits spin well and plays off the front foot. There may,
however, still be questions about how he’ll cope defensively against
Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha.
The inclusion of Morgan would
appear to have come at the expense of two men who featured in the Test series
against South Africa.
Ravi Bopara’s form crisis has
been well documented, but he’s played only one Test in 2012, and, having been
earmarked for a place this year before injury and then personal issues struck,
is arguably due a proper shot at the five-day game. Nevertheless, in his
current state of mind it would be a major risk to take him in a squad devoid of
senior batsmen.
James Taylor can arguably count
himself more hard done by. The Nottinghamshire batsman has long been earmarked
as a future Test star and didn’t disgrace himself on debut at Headingley, where
his supporting innings of 34 was praised. His omission flies in the face of
England’s much vaunted consistency of selection, but perhaps he has been an
unlucky victim of KP-gate and the retirement of Strauss - with Jonny Bairstow
demanding a place, and Root picked at the top of the order, England have two
young batsmen in the squad and a third would perhaps be a risk too far.
Geoff Miller and his fellow
selectors are right to pick five seamers and three spinners. Its hard to argue
with the five pace options on the plane, whilst it is a relief to see that
rumours of Monty Panesar’s exclusion have proved unfounded. But the selection
of
Samit Patel is baffling. Patel failed to
register a Championship hundred this summer, took only 14 wickets at 38 and is
hardly
Jonty Rhodes in the field. Yet it would
appear that England still fancy him at number seven to supposedly balance the
side in Asian conditions - a role he failed to fulfill satisfactorily in Sri
Lanka. Leaving out Patel would have opened up a place for James Tredwell, who
never disappoints for England, and could have come in handy should Swann have
to pull out injured before a match where England want to play two spinners.
Looking forward to the series
itself, India will start as favourites but the visitors should not be written
off. England proved themselves to be a vastly superior side in England last
summer and, whilst the sub-continent presents a different set of challenges, the
turnaround should not be as stark as to make India nailed on victors. The first
line of attack should be with the quick men - with the possible exception of an
occasional pitch offering excessive turn Anderson, Broad and Finn should all
play as India’s batsmen play spin exceptionally well. If the bowlers do their
job, as they did last winter, then a lot will depend on the batsmen. The
line-up is arguably the most inexperienced taken on tour since the visit to
South Africa at the turn of the century. Nevertheless, India can be a good
place to start for inexperienced batsmen and in Cook, Trott, Bell and not
forgetting Matt Prior, we still have four of the best in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment