*Official* Road to the 2010/11 Ashes

[flibbertyjibber]

Can't see how or why Tremlett the southern softie has been picked ahead of Shahzad but other than that i am happy enough with the squad.Yes Rashid is a great prospect but throwing him in for a debut if Swann gets ill/injured is a huge risk and Monty has experience of playing down under and over 100 test wickets.

Bring it on.

 

[Flem274*]

So good to have an English side travelling to Australia that isn't going just to drop their pants and receive a spanking on their pink bottoms.

The way that 06/07 side were playing, and considering Vaughan was out, they were always going to lose.

 

[ozone]

Well the first choice Test team seem to have all got contracts, and he's obviously not in that.

Its quite short-sited though. Assuming he stays fit, there is zero chance of Morgan getting dropped from the limited overs sides and he is also the next in line for a place in the Test team. He has played the last 6 tests anyway and although Bell will probably come back in, if any of current batsmen are dropped or injured he'll be playing in the test side.

 

[tooextracool]

Let me see if I can wrap my head around this.

Ajmal Shahzad has 38 @ 28.31
while Tim Bresnan has 21 @ 33.66

this season

clearly a lot of logic there.

 

[King Pietersen]

Shahzad bowled a heck of a lot better in Tests too. Very strange selection. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the squads personally. Rashid > Panesar, Shahzad > Bresnan, Bopara doesn't even get into the performance squad, nor does Rashid, yet Maurice Chambers, Jade Dernbach and James Tredwell do. Very weird.

 

[tooextracool]

Think potentially Rashid maybe better than Panesar but at this point Panesar is less of a liability than Rashid. I think Rashid will get torn apart if he did actually play a test in Australia at the moment, hes far from the finished article.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Think potentially Rashid maybe better than Panesar but at this point Panesar is less of a liability than Rashid. I think Rashid will get torn apart if he did actually play a test in Australia at the moment, hes far from the finished article.

Agreed,Rashid will probably play lots of tests and be a good player for England but to throw him in for his debut in this series is asking too much.I agree with the Panesar selection even if it is the safe option.

 

[Jarquis]

Just when you thought England's selection was heading in the right direction. If Rashid isn't playing First Class cricket somewhere this winter then it is a massive, massive WTF moment IMO

 

[fredfertang]

Does seem daft that Rashid isn't in the performance squad though - its not as if Australian pitches won't suit him - to play on some hard, fast and bouncy tracks might be the making of him

 

[Flem274*]

Panesar will probably have zero effect. I'd back Michael Clarke to deal with him even on a turner. Likable cricketer and all, but he has little variation past "spin it lots!" His fielding and batting are awful, and he's no threat at all on any pitch that doesn't take turn.

Plenty of guys have done well on debut, even against Australia. Rashid is the superior bowler and cricketer.

 

[King Pietersen]

Just better hope Swann doesn't get injured, a tail of Anderson, Finn and Panesar does not make for good reading.

 

[Jarquis]

Taking Panesar obviously shows that the England management rate him as the second best spinner in the country, and if Swann gets broken we're going to keep the 3 seamers and 1 spinner approach.
I'm not sure I agree with either but we'll see. The idea of Panesar as part of a 4 man attack in Australia along with Broad, Anderson and Finn seems a bit dire. Especially when you think that Anderson will be at 9 >.<

Why Shahzad isn't in the squad, I can't work out for the life of me, Bresnan will be cannon fodder in Australia, he's absolute turd as a Test match bowler and his batting is nowhere near where it needs to be for him to be a Test match number 7.

Just why?

 

[tooextracool]

Just better hope Swann doesn't get injured, a tail of Anderson, Finn and Panesar does not make for good reading.

Think it should be pretty obvious that if Swann is injured that we might as well kiss the Ashes goodbye. Hes quite possibly the MVP from either side.

 

[tooextracool]

I'm not sure I agree with either but we'll see. The idea of Panesar as part of a 4 man attack in Australia along with Broad, Anderson and Finn seems a bit dire. Especially when you think that Anderson will be at 9 >.<

I dont think theres any chance in hell that Rashid is currently capable of playing as part of a 4 man attack. So we're likely to have some variation of that 3 irrespective of whether Rashid were to be the backup spinner.

 

[ozone]

I think the reason Bresnan was included, rightly or not, is as an understudy to Stuart Broad. As people have pointed out with regards including Panesar, if Broad is injured, we would otherwise have had a tail of Anderson, Shahzad/Tremlett, Finn and I think they decided that Shahzad was unlikely to be that much more effective than Bresnan would be.

That and the fact that Bresnan is good mates with most of the squad, having been around it for some time. Just saying.

 

[Jarquis]

I dont think theres any chance in hell that Rashid is currently capable of playing as part of a 4 man attack. So we're likely to have some variation of that 3 irrespective of whether Rashid were to be the backup spinner.

Yes, I was more making the point for Shahzad's inclusion ahead of Monty. Depends how important you feel a spinner is, am slowly seeing merit to aussie's idea that if Swann breaks down we have to go with 4 seamers. Is just a shame KP would be the only half decent spinner in the side.

 

[zaremba]

Just better hope Swann doesn't get injured, a tail of Anderson, Finn and Panesar does not make for good reading.

That's if Finn plays ahead of Tremlett. I suppose he's the man in possession but much may depend on how they each go in the 3 FC warm-ups. Tremlett could be a real handful and to my mind the jury's still out on Finn. Tremlett would add a bit of solidity to the tail - he's scored 7 FC fifties and averages 18 which is perfectly good for a number 9.

England has been served outrageously well by its lower-order batsmen in the last couple of years and having an old-style collapsible tail needs to be avoided at all costs. Which brings me back to the Gabba 2006/7, when the world and his wife (and, unsurprisingly, Shane Warne) were calling for England to field what would surely have been the flimsiest 6-11 in our cricketing history: Flintoff, Read, Hoggard, Harmison, Anderson, Panesar. Not that averting that particular car crash did us much good, but hey.

 

[zaremba]

Bad news from cricinfo:

There will be no highlights of this winter's Ashes on terrestrial TV according to a report in the Daily Mail.

The newspaper claims no terrestrial broadcaster responded to the tender document offering free-to-air rights because of strict limitations on the time they would be allowed to air any highlights package. It was expected the tender, sent out by IMG earlier this year, would attract interest from the BBC or Channel 5.

However, both broadcasters said scheduling restrictions put them off making any bid. The terms are believed to have stated no highlights could be shown before 10pm, a delay of almost a day, and they could not overlap with any of Sky's live transmissions, which usually start at around 11.30pm, giving a very small window for them to be shown.

Good to see the broader interests of the game are being so well protected.

Someone should launch a petition about this, and possibly a hunger strike in Parliament Square.

EDIT: apologies for quoting anything from the Daily Mail. I am now going to disinfect my keyboard.

 

[Jarquis]

Which means I'll get to see 0 Ashes coverage this winter

 

[GIMH]

So good to have an English side travelling to Australia that isn't going just to drop their pants and receive a spanking on their pink bottoms.

The way that 06/07 side were playing, and considering Vaughan was out, they were always going to lose.

We won our last series before going to Oz tbf, it was more the fact that there were a heap of injuries and an unsettled squad.