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Best man for the job. At least a couple of the grounds for The Ashes (Swalec & The Oval) are probably going to take spin, so he could end up doing a fair bit of bowling.
He is, essentially, an old-fashioned finger-spinner in that he doesn't have a throwsra (or at least he doesn't bowl one in matches, there's been a few suggestions he's working on one in the nets) but he gives it a fair rip (not as natural a spinner of the ball as Monty, but compensates for this by occasionally giving the ball air) and has a (seemingly) well-disguised arm-ball. Plus he's a decent bat (averages high 20s in FC) and can field too.
As for his county ground, Trent Bridge of late has probably been the ground most likely to swing (Sidebottom & Pattinson have both exploited this) so he's not really got too much assistance there. He did start at Northants tho, whose County Ground is one of the tracks more condusive to spin (Monty's home ground, fwiw), so by moving to a test county he did show ambition to move on, which is never a bad thing in a cricketer.
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- As featured in The Independent.
"This is not the time for namby-pamby promising youngsters who might just do something; not the time for building for the future. Pragmatism rules and they don't come more pragmatic than Rogers."
- Victor Marks makes the case for stiff-legged and stiff-armed 35 year old left-handers in Ashes squads
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