Pietersen gets the nod

[SJS]

I think there would be a case for Pieterson and Thorpe over bell. I think the batle should have been between pieterson and bell, they made that decison at the start of the year (i would have made a different one) and i think they should have stuck with that side.

I would tend to agree with that. England should have chosen one of the two - Pieterson and Bell. Thorpe should have been an automatic choice , more so against the Aussies.

 

[kendall]

drop giles for thorpe

Cant possibly not have giles in the side he is a very important player and has improved imensly in the last year plus i cant stand it when a side doesnt have a proper spinner. The 4 seamers i dont think would be enough

 

[Monty]

giles is not a proper spinner he is a second rate bowler
england need to raise and nuture a yoiung leggie

 

[kendall]

Well they cant do that by thursday can they?
But really Giles is a decnet bowler that gets through the overs and has been pretty econoimcal in the one dayers and i think he will pick up a few vital wickets so dropping him is really not an option

 

[tooextracool]

take a bow selectors, you've just thrown away any chance you had of winning the ashes.

 

[aussie]

take a bow selectors, you've just thrown away any chance you had of winning the ashes.

well said TEC

 

[tooextracool]

Good move, England. Go for the future, I reckon. Thorpe has done his dash. Although in good form, if he can't physically stand up to 5 Tests, then Pieterson was the logical choice.

i'd think thorpe fit or unfit, is by far the best batsman in the test side.
dropping someone whos played 3 match winning innings and 2 match saving innings in the last year and a half takes something. i'd be extremely surprised if he isnt back before the 5th test, probably when we try to extricate ourselves from a whitewash.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Graham Thorpe averages nearly 45 for a reason - he is damned good! England's middle order is just too fragile now and I remain unconvinced about Flintoff's batting. Australia have world class batting down to 7, we now have world class batting down to 5. Australia have to bowl us out twice to win, and this has been made a damn sight easier now.

So we're now to face Australia with only two of our top 7 having played them before, one of whom has been continually dire against them.

My team would be...

Trescothick
Strauss
Vaughan
Bell
Thorpe
Pietersen
Flintoff
G Jones
Lewis
Hoggard
Harmison

12th Man: Joyce or Tremlett

Dropping Giles for Thorpe would have given us almost unbeatable batting depth, and we should not lose sight of the fact that mediocre spinners very rarely have much impact at Lords. Lewis did well on the few occasions he played against Australia and S Jones was treated like a club bowler. Tremlett is unlucky, Joyce deserves to be on the fringes, I prefer Read to Jones but such a swap would cause unnecessary disruption to the team at this crucial moment. The rest pick themselves.

I will be surprised if S Jones or Giles average under 40 in this series.

Lewis?! You must be joking. He might be a decent county trundler, but Lewis is so far from being good enough to take wickets against Australia in tests its not funny. And where did you get the idea he had been good against Australia? Outside of the 20/20 he got belted. I wouldn't have dropped Thorpe either as I think he's England's best batsman, but if he's not fit enough to play then Pietersen was the correct call. Leaving Giles out also puts a lot of pressure on someone like Flintoff, so that's a hard call.

Jones or Tremlett or even someone like Lewry or a has-been Caddick or Gough would be better than Lewis, though.

 

[King_Ponting]

Well the Engravers for the ashes must have told the english selectors cause Australias name is on the trophy.

 

[aussie]

England have to be the best batting side in the world if they can drop Thorpe.

, well apparantley the selectors feel that way

 

[steds]

I'm tellin' theh now, there'll be 'appeh endin' onleh if Pietersen trundles 'is way up th'road up Manchester way t'learn 'ow tu talk propuhleh lahk us.

 

[tooextracool]

Graham Thorpe averages nearly 45 for a reason - he is damned good! England's middle order is just too fragile now and I remain unconvinced about Flintoff's batting. Australia have world class batting down to 7, we now have world class batting down to 5. Australia have to bowl us out twice to win, and this has been made a damn sight easier now.

So we're now to face Australia with only two of our top 7 having played them before, one of whom has been continually dire against them.

and only 1 player in this entire england side has ever had any sort of success against australia in the past. doesnt our middle order look great now?
bell
pietersen
flintoff
jones

ahh the whos who of cricket. throw in tresco and strauss and could it be possible to have a more unproven side?

Lewis did well on the few occasions he played against Australia and S Jones was treated like a club bowler.

ahh jon lewis who looked so bad in his only ODI(against australia), that not only did he get kicked out of the side for the rest of the series, but he got dropped from both the natwest challenge and test squad soon after.

 

[aussie]

are rather defeatist (or should I say 'non-winning') attitude.

England go into this series with the best chance of WINNING the Ashes for almost 20 years. Winning means winning more games...a 0-0 draw in this series and Australia retain the Ashes

not really, its a sensible attitude since that is most likely to happen with Thorpe's axing.

 

[aussie]

Thorpe has scored 168 runs in 9 innings for Surrey this season..Peitersen hasnt been brilliant and yet has scored 2 hundreds in FC cricket and has shown that he can be damned good vs Australia already this year ..and he is scoring his FC runs at one hell of a rate

you cant compare FC to test cricket, that was proven significantly with the England players this season who had poor starts with their counties then hit the mark when the test came around.Plus Thorpe has done nothing wrong for England since his comeback...

 

[PY]

I don't think people (ie us lot) have been told the full story here. I fully believe that Thorpe is the kind of man to say to the selectors not to pick him if he wasn't fit enough which there is a high chance he isn't.

Maybe not openly saying it to them but a quick word in the ear of the Chairman and the decision is made for them but Pieterson still receives the confidence boost (does he really need one? ) of being picked over the best batsmen England have had in the past decade.

Just a thought I had before the decision came out and I'm proud to say I have nothing to back this up.

 

[aussie]

giles is not a proper spinner he is a second rate bowler
england need to raise and nuture a yoiung leggie

 

[tooextracool]

England go into this series with the best chance of WINNING the Ashes for almost 20 years. Winning means winning more games...a 0-0 draw in this series and Australia retain the Ashes

says a fair bit about how poor our side has been for the last 20 years doesnt it?

 

[Scaly piscine]

It's so much more than who the better player is. Thorpe is struggling with his back just getting through a FC game. Imagine putting him through what shapes to be the toughest Ashes series in over a decade. I would suggest it's far more than form which has forced the selectors' hands. What's the point in picking a guy who, by virtue of his injury, is going to be an almost definite liability in the field and might wrench his back in the first Test and miss the rest of the series? If he was fully fit you'd have a point but he so isn't and I bet we're not hearing the half of how bad his back actually is. When you're having cortisone injections into a nervous area of your body, it's a matter of time before the muscles seize up.

Yea that's the way I see it, England have gone into previous Ashes series with guys who are injury doubts and been burnt badly with them then pulling out and destabilizing the team. I don't think it's worth it to play Thorpe for 1-2 Tests than have to replace him.

 

[marc71178]

Pietersen has been a revelation for both club and country at every level, what more could you ask?

Hardly a revelation for Hampshire.

 

[marc71178]

The above combination is what has won England Tests in the last two years. There is no good reason to change it.

Could draw a similar comparison with McGrath, GIllespie, Kaspa and Warne!