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England players and selection discussion thread

Chin Music

Chin Music

State Vice-Captain
Molehill said:
I'm still not entirely sold on this. If those two were so damn good, why weren't they selected for the First Test? Yes they bowled well, but I've got a feeling our spinners would've been picking up a lot of cheap wickets against Crawley, Pope, Stokes etc too. Pakistan generally had one bat in their middle order who was willing to get his head down and get properly stuck in. Smith showed a brief glimpse of that but even by the second innings he'd been dragged down by the others.
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I'm not saying they were so brilliant, I'm just saying that they understood the conditions and bowled to them
'and maintained their consistency in the way that ours didn't. Perhaps it was the workload that did for him, but Leach looked shot by the 3rd test. I agree that both of the Pak spinners were lucky not to play on the road of the 1st test otherwise they would have probably had their performance dragged down and been less lively by the end of the series.
 
Molehill

Molehill

Cricketer Of The Year
Chin Music said:
I'm not saying they were so brilliant, I'm just saying that they understood the conditions and bowled to them
'and maintained their consistency in the way that ours didn't. Perhaps it was the workload that did for him, but Leach looked shot by the 3rd test. I agree that both of the Pak spinners were lucky not to play on the road of the 1st test otherwise they would have probably had their performance dragged down and been less lively by the end of the series.
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Does anyone know if Abrar is still alive? He really was a sacrificial lamb....
 
morgieb

morgieb

Request Your Custom Title Now!
GoodAreasShane said:
On a more serious note though, I would have to agree that even by recent England standards some of the picks are puzzling
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I mean I honestly sort of get why you'd take gambles on bowlers. Usually the eye test is a bit more reliable than figures in assessing the upside of quicks, and it's not like they've got a whole heap of gun county spinners knocking down the door. Remember we picked Lyon and Cummins off the back of T20 form....

Batters though? Very different story, and what if he has to play a Test? Would be ludicrous. His FC SR is 44, so it's not even like he's a hitter either!
 
Third_Man

Third_Man

State 12th Man
morgieb said:
Batters though? Very different story, and what if he has to play a Test? Would be ludicrous. His FC SR is 44, so it's not even like he's a hitter either!
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That's not the plan. Stokes is on record saying that the top six is the best available. Bethell's selection is simply a vote of confidence in the status quo. Once again the back up for an opener / top three is probably to fly someone in.
 
K

kevinw

State Captain
Nicky said:
I think England should try and craft a spin-allrounder, for the balance of the side. Swann was pretty good with the bat, then Mo Ali was even better, meaning they could always have a spinner in the XI and it wasn't about choosing between Bashir/Leach (who can't bat) or a seam option. I think that worked out pretty well for England.
Having two allrounders at 7 & 8 makes a team so strong I think (like India for example with the best 2 allrounders in Ashwin & Jadeja!).
England have Stokes at number 7, and well.. if their number 8 was say...... Jacob Bethell ? And then, you'd have 3 other bowling options to pick depending on the track.

Having said that, I'm part of the ones thinking Pope shouldn't be in the XI. And I'm part of the ones thinking Stokes could move to number 1, 2 or 3.
So I'll try something :

1. Duckett
2. Crawley
3. Stokes
4. Root
5. Brook
6. Smith
7. Bethell
8. Atkinson
9. Carse/Woakes/ ?
10. SAM COOK
11. Leach/Potts/ ?
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Liam Dawson. An answer so obvious the golfing guys never see it.
 
Molehill

Molehill

Cricketer Of The Year
Chubb said:
Dawson is probably within his rights to tell them to **** off if they do approach him.
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I think he did which is why they haven't approached him since.

There is a fella that has the same batting average as Bethell but took 50 CC wickets this season at 22.46.....
 
K

kevinw

State Captain
Molehill said:
I think he did which is why they haven't approached him since.

There is a fella that has the same batting average as Bethell but took 50 CC wickets this season at 22.46.....
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Jack Carson? Yeah I reckon he should be in contention given his season, and he's a decent enough bat too.
 
Third_Man

Third_Man

State 12th Man
Wonder what happens when McCullum takes over the ODI squad. Does he realise he has the all format spinning allrounder England previously dropped earlier this year even from the ODI squad and less than two years ago from the test arena?
 
FBU

FBU

International Debutant
Cricket Writers' Club Young Cricketer of the Year
(must be under 23 on May 1)

2000 - Paul Franks 0
2001 - Owais Shah 6
2002 - Rikki Clarke 2
2003 - James Anderson 188
2004 - Ian Bell 118
2005 - Alistair Cook 161
2006 - Stuart Broad 167
2007 - Adil Rashid 19
2008 - Ravi Bopara 13
2009 - James Taylor 7
2010 - Steven Finn 36
2011 - Johnny Bairstow 100
2012 - Joe Root 149
2013 - Ben Stokes 107
2014 - Alec Lees 10
2015 - Jack Leaning 0
2016 - Ben Duckett 29
2017 - Dan Lawrence 14
2018 - Sam Curran 24
2019 - Tom Banton 0
2020 - Zak Crawley 50
2021 - Harry Brook 21
2022 - Jordan Cox 0
2023 - James Rew 0
2024 - Shoaib Bashir 12
 
grecian

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Test obviously mentioned, but I think they've all played International cricket other than Rew and Leaning.
 
Chubb

Chubb

International Regular
grecian said:
Test obviously mentioned, but I think they've all played International cricket other than Rew and Leaning.
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Yes even the obscure Paul Franks played an ODI but never amounted to much in real life. Very effective on early ICC editions though, from memory.
 
K

kevinw

State Captain
Chubb said:
Yes even the obscure Paul Franks played an ODI but never amounted to much in real life. Very effective on early ICC editions though, from memory.
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I think he got a series of bad injuries not long after this award and improved his batting when his bowling declined.
 
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