***Official*** England in South Africa 2015/16

[Magrat Garlick]

the only ones genuinely arguing for Bell's inclusion ITT are Australia fans

(There are some people arguing his career shows he's not a terrible batsman but that's not the same as saying he will play in 2016)

 

[91Jmay]

Seam bowling stocks look fine to me, both guys playing at moment + depth for them and youngsters coming through. Woakes is done as a test match player which is a shame for him, but he can go back to being a good white ball cricketer and the best player in County Championship.

 

[harsh.ag]

Compton must stay. Eats a lot of balls and that definitely helps Root.

 

[theegyptian]

Broad is like 29 or something, no way is he at the end.

Played a lot of cricket for his age (more games in each of the 3 international formats than Steyn) and whilst he has a lean body, the angle of his body (feet,knees) at release seems to promote wear and tear in the body.

I'd guess at 2 years for both Broad and Anderson (even though Anderson is 4 years older) but you never really know when they'll start to go. I'd be very surprised if Broad is still playing in 4 years time.

 

[91Jmay]

I'd be surprised if he isn't playing in 4 years time. Don't agree with him coming back into ODI squad though, no value there for me.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Eats a lot of balls and that definitely helps Root.

Me too.

 

[Captain_Cook]

I'd be very surprised if Broad is still playing in 4 years time.

Disagree, I reckon he'll be in the 130 test club with about 500 wickets.

 

[Furball]

He'll have his workload managed to get to the next World Cup (possibly, he's not that good an ODI bowler) and will still be playing Tests barring a career ending injury.

 

[Compton]

I wouldn't mind Broad cutting down his LO stuff to enlongate his test career.

 

[Jarquis]

Already has

 

[Prince EWS]

Yeah it's hard to imagine him playing less white ball cricket than he has recently..

 

[91Jmay]

No idea why they recalled him to be honest. An ordinary white ball bowler, just save him ffs.

 

[Jarquis]

Because it's not worth calling over anyone else when they're unlikely to even get a game. Who even would be the next cab off the rank? It's worthless picking one from a bunch as basically 8th choice, only to send them back and not see them again for 3 years.

Broad is in SA and has been vocal about wanting to play more ODIs and will be rotated through the series with the other seamers. It's not a major thing.

 

[Shady Slim]

i'd say it's good for broad to play the occasional jamodi series against south africa to stay fresh and with the format and not reverse the skills he's got

reversibility is a huge thing in sport

 

[MrPrez]

I really struggle to see a case for keeping Morkel over Rabada after these past few performances.

JP Duminy is a peculiar case. A lot of the motivation for his selection is the fact that he can bowl some good offspinners. Back when AB was keeping, he seemed a great number 7 - an average of 30-35 is still pretty decent for a number 7, and he added a bit of spin to our otherwise-4-pronged bowling attack.

Now though, between QDK cementing his place and Piedt/Harmer being genuine spin-bowling options, there doesn't seem to be space for Duminy. But our selectors will continuously have it at the back of their mind that we don't have any other bowling options in our top 7 (except perhaps Dean Elgar). We've always been an all-rounder heavy nation (Pollock, Kallis, Hall, Klusener, Boje, Peterson etc) so it's scary territory to only have four decent bowlers.

I've often wondered whether we shouldn't be grooming QDK as an opening batsman rather than as a 7-batting keeper. He does have opening experience, and openers are much harder to find than keepers.

 

[Prince EWS]

What's really counting against Duminy is how similar a bowler he is to Piedt, even beyond the fact that they're right arm offies. If Piedt's not playing then Duminy becomes a batting allrounder option, but as long as Piedt's in the side Elgar's going to be more likely to bowl than Duminy so he has to justify his spot on batting alone.. and he just doesn't.

 

[Marius]

I really struggle to see a case for keeping Morkel over Rabada after these past few performances.

JP Duminy is a peculiar case. A lot of the motivation for his selection is the fact that he can bowl some good offspinners. Back when AB was keeping, he seemed a great number 7 - an average of 30-35 is still pretty decent for a number 7, and he added a bit of spin to our otherwise-4-pronged bowling attack.

Now though, between QDK cementing his place and Piedt/Harmer being genuine spin-bowling options, there doesn't seem to be space for Duminy. But our selectors will continuously have it at the back of their mind that we don't have any other bowling options in our top 7 (except perhaps Dean Elgar). We've always been an all-rounder heavy nation (Pollock, Kallis, Hall, Klusener, Boje, Peterson etc) so it's scary territory to only have four decent bowlers.

I've often wondered whether we shouldn't be grooming QDK as an opening batsman rather than as a 7-batting keeper. He does have opening experience, and openers are much harder to find than keepers.

We really shouldn't stick Quinny in to open. Imagine keeping for 150 overs and then having to go and open the batting? It's one thing to do that in LO games, but Tests is a different story. Much prefer him to fulfill a Gilchrist-type role at number 7.

 

[Prince EWS]

We really shouldn't stick Quinny in to open. Imagine keeping for 150 overs and then having to go and open the batting? It's one thing to do that in LO games, but Tests is a different story. Much prefer him to fulfill a Gilchrist-type role at number 7.

He's suggesting that maybe he should be opening instead of keeping; not doing both.

 

[Stefan9]

QDK is much better suit to batting in the middle order where he can target tired bowlers with the hard new second ball then opening against fresh bowlers. Yes he could do it but he is better suited to 6 or 7 imho.

 

[StephenZA]

QDK must not open in tests, I don`t think he has the temperament for it. He is fine in ODI but not Tests. Can you ever imagine Aus discussing putting Gilchrist to open in Tests... maybe they did but I don't think so.... there is enough good batsmen in SA to cover opening. For all van Zyls problems at the top he is a highly talented batsmen and could still become a good opener for SA, people forget he made most of his runs at 3 in domestic cricket, facing the new ball often.

Ideally, QDK would be at 7, and I think that is what SA will do. But without a good enough all-rounder in SA atm I personally think QDK should be six and we should be playing Philander, Steyn, Rabada, Morkel and Piedt.

Rabada is to similar to Steyn for me to drop Morkel. Morkel gives great variety to the attack, people forget how good he actually bowled in India. Morkel can just not be the leader of an attack, even with all his experience.