Mistakes in selection on this tour by England

[Furball]

Still think that Rashid being looked over for the trip to Australia was an error - tough gig in India bowling leg spin, he should have been the reserve spinner on this trip in my opinion, especially for the Melb/Sydney tests where two spinners might have been an option. Finger spin is very hard here to do successfully - even Swann on 10/11 averaged over 40 IIRC.

And, going back to an earlier point, these wickets have been roads - maybe aside from Adelaide, helped by the grass left on to protect the pink ball.

I think Swann might just have snuck in under 40. 38 seems to ring a bell.

He went about as well as you could expect someone to go in Australia. 5 for at Adelaide to win the game, generally kept it tight when getting nothing from the pitch otherwise (his spell of 22 overs for 23 runs and the wicket of Michael Clarke being a case in point)

 

[Spikey]

Jack Leach, for all his domestic success, was reported for a dodgy action, is still relatively young and inexperienced, and Australia is not the place to debut a new spinner.

There are no obvious stand out candidates to replace Moeen. People are just hating on Moeen to hate on Moeen. It's ridiculous.

Tbf, he wasn't ever reported by an umpire iirc

 

[cnerd123]

Tbf, he wasn't ever reported by an umpire iirc

to my understanding any reports done by umpires regarding bowling actions in domestic cricket are done privately via closed channels. The reports aren't made public like they are for International cricket. So not sure how we can know one way or another.

I'd have picked Adil Rashid for Mason Crane too tbh. Not sure what picking Crane accomplishes. Is the Ashes really the time to take a player out to 'experience the dressing room' and nothing else? If he isn't going to play a game, then either leave him at home or send him out with the Lions where he can actually play some cricket.

 

[Gnske]

Australia is not the place to debut a new spinner.

Keshav Maharaj

 

[stephen]

Picking Cook for this test was certainly a selection blunder.

 

[cnerd123]

Keshav Maharaj

pretty poor decision that only looks good in hindisght. Like selecting Tim Paine and Shaun Marsh and Mitch Marsh...

 

[ImpatientLime]

not picking rashid is definitely the one that makes little to no sense since the india tour.

not just because he performed pretty admirably out there and is clearly the best wrist spinner by some distance available to england. but also because he is a hugely capable lower order batsman so you can drop moeen for him in this instance and not weaken the batting like you would with crane. he's also a fairly tidy fielder.

there must be a personality issue at play.

 

[marc71178]

He did not perform admirably, he bowled his usual quota of four balls and proved incapable of maintaining control, much like his entire career in red ball cricket. It's amazing how players improve when not in the team.

 

[ImpatientLime]

bloke took 23 wickets. the next best by an englishman was moeen with 10 ffs. only jadeja and ashwin took more with 28 and 26.

yes he serves up 4 balls but show me a wrist spinner not named shane warne that doesn't. the reality is that along with moeen he is the best we have on offer. picking crane ahead of him is an absolute nonsense. he's proven to be a wicket threat at this level, something we've lacked massively in this series.

anderson has been miserly and admirable, the rest have been dog ****.

 

[cnerd123]

He did not perform admirably, he bowled his usual quota of four balls and proved incapable of maintaining control, much like his entire career in red ball cricket. It's amazing how players improve when not in the team.

The question isn't whether Rashid is an elite level legspinner anyways, it's if he would add more value to the squad than Mason Crane. And that should pretty clearly be a yes - Rashid has atleast had some degree of success at international level whilst Crane isn't even a proven country spinner, plus he can bat.

 

[tooextracool]

Jack Leach, for all his domestic success, was reported for a dodgy action, is still relatively young and inexperienced, and Australia is not the place to debut a new spinner.

There are no obvious stand out candidates to replace Moeen. People are just hating on Moeen to hate on Moeen. It's ridiculous.

It's hard to hate on Moeen because he is by all accounts the games' archetypal gentleman. However, I don't think that he is good enough in either discipline alone to play for England - his real value comes as an all round package. With regards to the Ashes, he went in under-cooked, and his situation was exacerbated by an injury to his index finger which never really had enough time to heal. For a finger spinner, that is as good as a death knell. The people judging his bowling performance based on his returns from this series are in my mind completely mistaken but he probably shouldn't have been in the side after the first test and he almost certainly shouldn't have been after the 2nd test. Why he is still in the side after the 3rd test is unfathomable, let alone as the front line spinner.

There are certainly other candidates - not named Mason Crane - who aren't carrying an injury and couldn't have done any worse.

 

[TheJediBrah]

bloke took 23 wickets. the next best by an englishman was moeen with 10 ffs. only jadeja and ashwin took more with 28 and 26.

yes he serves up 4 balls but show me a wrist spinner not named shane warne that doesn't. the reality is that along with moeen he is the best we have on offer. picking crane ahead of him is an absolute nonsense. he's proven to be a wicket threat at this level, something we've lacked massively in this series.

anderson has been miserly and admirable, the rest have been dog ****.

Shane Warne threw up plenty of 4 balls. He may have been better than most but those occasional full tosses and half trackers were always on the cards.

 

[marc71178]

Shane Warne threw up plenty of 4 balls. He may have been better than most but those occasional full tosses and half trackers were always on the cards.

There's a difference between one a spell and one an over though.

 

[S.Kennedy]

As I said before, what is the alternative to some of the spin selections being frequently lambasted here? It is not as if we have someone of Swann's calibre who has been spending his entire winter in the Lions playing the Queensland Seconds or back home at Loughborough or in his county's academy, another ''victim'' of ''selection oversight madness''. We haven't even got someone of Tuffers or Edmonds type quality to be honest!

 

[fredfertang]

That Qadri lad at Derbyshire is the answer

 

[Burgey]

Tufnell was a good bowler. Underrated

 

[S.Kennedy]

Tuffers would walk into this England side.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Simon Kerrigan

 

[Dan]

Australia is where off-spinners go to die. Moeen's not alone -- last time I checked this, I think it was only Saqlain, Vettori and Herath who had even vaguely creditable touring averages (maybe Ajmal as well, now that I think about it). Since I looked at those numbers we've had Maharaj too.

Anybody acting like this is purely about Moeen, and that County Spinner #632 (even if it's Jack Leach ) would have done any better, is pushing back against the balance of evidence stemming from the last 25 years of Australian tours: it's ****ing hard to bowl (finger) spin here, no matter how good at it you are. Moeen has been poor, sure -- not doubting that for a second. But he's not the first and won't be the last. There's no miracle solution for England, unless they go full W.G. and kidnap Lyon to force him to represent them instead.

 

[Burgey]

It’s because none of those blokes are as good as Lyon. People need to start accepting what a ****ing good bowler he is.