*Official* England in South Africa

[zaremba]

Well a 7,8,9 of Broad, Swann and Plunkett? is pretty decent I'd say.
Large part depends on the make up of the bowling attack really. Who is going to play? Broad, Swann, Onions, Anderson and....?
Must be forgetting somebody

Putting the various parts of your post together, Broad, Swann, Onions, Anderson and Plunkett perhaps?

My preference generally is to stack the batting a bit. Broad is an excellent 8 but a poor 7.

For me:

Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Collingwood
Prior
Morgan
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Onions

Which means plenty of fill-in filth from Collingwood, Trotsky and KP, but they ought all to be up to the job.

 

[Jarquis]

Putting the various parts of your post together, Broad, Swann, Onions, Anderson and Plunkett perhaps?

My preference generally is to stack the batting a bit. Broad is an excellent 8 but a poor 7.

For me:

Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Collingwood
Prior
Morgan
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Onions

Which means plenty of fill-in filth from Collingwood, Trotsky and KP, but they ought all to be up to the job.

I meant somebody other than Plunkett as the person I'd forgotten. I'll check the squad as it wasn't Wright either.
Don't fancy that side to bowl SA twice on an early season deck.

 

[DingDong]

yet another great great day for cricket. aus vs wi. eng vs sa. sehwag playing so well and nz vs pak. all top 8 teams playing.

 

[zaremba]

I meant somebody other than Plunkett as the person I'd forgotten. I'll check the squad as it wasn't Wright either.
Don't fancy that side to bowl SA twice on an early season deck.

Our only hope is that they play 5 batsmen and McLaren at 6.
The sad reality is that our bowling doesn't really get better than those 4. Plunkett and Wright somewhat short of Test class imho although (perhaps unlike others) I would be delighted to be proved wrong there.

 

[Jarquis]

Yeah I'd like them to exceed expectation, always hope.
The player I'd forgotten was Widebottom but that doesn't do anything for the batting.

 

[Furball]

It doesn't necessarily, I agree. I'd prefer it to ODI failure as an indicator for likelihood of test apptitude tho.

Morgan does look to have something about him. He might not quite be ready for tests, but it would be refreshing to see our selectors give the new bloke a go rather than rounding up the usual suspects the next time a spot in the top six becomes open.

Morgan might want to do something at First Class level first before thinking about a Test call up.

 

[aussie]

Quite happy with Prior at 6. I wouldn't bat him at 7 just because he's the keeper. If we play 7 batsmen including him, great, but in that case Morgan would be just fine at 7. It's where Alec Stewart started (as a pure batsman at that stage) IIRC.

Well yes i woudn't have a problem with this when the time comes. Once Broad aint batting at @ 7.

 

[aussie]

Morgan might want to do something at First Class level first before thinking about a Test call up.

He will.

 

[Furball]

He will.

Yeah, but once he does so we shouldn't pay too much attention to it, right?

 

[aussie]

Yeah, but once he does so we shouldn't pay too much attention to it, right?

We shouldn't. But given Bell is useless & our FC system isn't producing the goods i would be batting Morgan @ 6 in the first test already based on ODI form.

Its not very English, but it wont kill us to take a leaf out of the books of the like asians, WI & NZ are start picking on raw talent just once.

 

[Flem274*]

I'd pick Morgan to bat six. Not a bit part player like Wright. Colly and Trottski can handle some overs.

 

[tooextracool]

Yip. Collingwood a good example of an ODI player (lousy FC record as it happens) who's turned out competent enough at the proper stuff

I am not sure I agree with that. Collingwood may have been pigeon-holed as a ODI specialist frequently and his overall FC record isnt flash but when he was picked for the longer format he was picked on the back off 2-3 good FC seasons for Durham. I am not sure if the same can be said about Morgan.

 

[tooextracool]

It's a sticky one and no doubt one that's be thoroughly debated on here. I'd be inclined to agree though, I'd imagine the number of players where Test ability ~ ODI ability is much much greater than the number of players whose Test ability >>> ODI ability.

I'd like to think our current top 6 is safe for a while though.
Strauss
Cook
Trott
Pietersen
Collingwood
Prior

Looks pretty stable to me.
Unless of course we opt for 6 batsmen + Prior in which case I'm not sure Morgan is the man for that spot yet. Though I don't think that 6 batsmen and 4 bowlers is the best option personally.
So yeah, if we run with the top 6 that I mentioned by the time Collingwood (I guess) needs to be replaced, Morgan could be the next man in line.

I am not really sure how Cook and stability go together. The guy is a walking wicket when the track offers anything for the seamers and whilst we have been reassured for the past 3 years that he has worked on his technique and corrected his flaws I don't think I am likely to be convinced that he's a shoe-in until he actually does so.

 

[tooextracool]

Who bats at seven though? Don't think Broad is ready for it - certainly didn't seem to be at Headingley.

Would think Bell would play. Despite the fact that I'm far from convinced about him, I am fairly certain that Bell at 6 would be a better option than Wright at 6 or Broad at 7. In case we still haven't learnt our lesson, our batting is far from stable enough to be able to rely on just 6 of them, especially whilst the likes of Cook and Collingwood are in the side.

 

[Briony]

The England batting looks stronger than SA with the latter not having a solid opening pair and JP radically out of form. The injury to Kallis also puts a spanner in the works and Boucher has seen better days.

 

[jboss]

The England batting looks stronger than SA with the latter not having a solid opening pair and JP radically out of form. The injury to Kallis also puts a spanner in the works and Boucher has seen better days.

Careful, they may thing that you are me. :P Dumminy should not play and it will be a scandal if he does as it is like saying to Eng here is a freebie, you know what to do. Just pitch it short. What SA couls have done is bring in a guy like Philander as a replacement for Ntini who can bat a little and Dean Elgar who can also bowl a little and is amongst the runs. A far stronger team on paper would be.

Smith
Elgar
Amla
AB
Prince
JP(He can play now because there is more bowling options in philander and elgar).
Kuhn(who looks in better form than Boucher)
Harris
Philander
Morkell
Steyn

 

[GIMH]

Reckon Colly might just do something special in the Test series, his last hurrah and all that jazz

 

[grecian]

A glorious Victory is practically ours.

Huzzah

 

[popepouri]

Gratz england.

 

[Jarquis]

Momentum clearly with us going into the Tests after todays result