WC 2007 Squad Selection
 

Right, in a continuation of my obsession with predicting things, with 18 months to go it's about the kind of time that we get a rough idea of who's under consideration for the World Cup squads for each country. Give potential 15-man squads for any country, and we'll dig this thread up when the squads are actually picked and see how wrong we were. Should provide some interesting debate as well, might help keep this thread going beyond my usual three pages' worth. :)

England:
MP Vaughan*
ME Trescothick
AJ Strauss
KP Pietersen
A Flintoff
PD Collingwood
GO Jones+
AF Giles
SJ Harmison
SP Jones
LE Plunkett
IR Bell
MJ Prior (+)
ID Blackwell
JM Anderson
AN Cook

Australia:
RT Ponting*
AC Gilchrist+
MJ Clarke
MEK Hussey
AJ Symonds
SM Katich
DR Martyn
SR Watson
CL White
GD McGrath
B Lee
NW Bracken
SK Warne ( :p )
BL Hodge
SW Tait
PN Jaques

India:
R Dravid*
MS Dhoni+
SR Tendulkar
V Sehwag
IK Pathan
G Gambhir
Y Singh
M Kaif
H Singh
RP Singh
AB Agarkar
JP Yadav
M Kartik
VRV Singh
A Rayudu
S Raina

That's all I can really be bothered to do at the moment. Thoughts? :)

For the Australian squad, Phil Jacques is more likely to be there than Martyn...and for India, perhaps Suresh Raina ahead of Rayudu. Other than that, they look fairly accurate to me..but who knows what'll happen between now and then.

Blackwell won't be in the England side. Won't it be squads of 16 to incorporate the supersub role?

Yes, actually, it probably will. I'll change it.

England:
Tres
Strauss
Vaughan
Bell
Collingwood
Flintoff
Pietersen
Blackwell
Jones
Jones
Harmi
Hoggard
Cook
Plunkett
Halsey (:p)

With any luck, SuperSubbing will be dead :p

More a 12, with backups here.

Jamee's Hope

AJ Strauss
ME Trescothick*
KP Pietersen
IR Bell
A Flintoff
PD Collingwood
CMW Read+
LE Plunkett
SJ Harmison
MJ Hoggard
SP Jones
12: AGR Loudon

Reserve Batsman: AN Cook
Reserve Keeper: GO Jones
Reserve SuperSup: VS Solanki
Reserve Bowler: CT Tremlett

Prediction

AJ Strauss
ME Trescothick
MP Vaughan*
KP Pietersen
A Flintoff
PD Collingwood
GO Jones+
AF Giles
LE Plunkett
SJ Harmison
SP Jones

Reserve Opener: AN Cook
Reserve Batsman: IR Bell
Reserve Wicket-Keeper: MJ Prior
Reserve Bowler: CT Tremlett

Australia & England possible 15-man sqauds with additional possibilities
 

AUSTRALIA:

Australia Possible World Cup 2007 15-Man Squad


1. Ricky Ponting * - Captain (Tasmania) Age: 32 in 2007 World Cup
2. Adam Gilchrist + - W/Keeper (Western Australia) Age: 35 in 2007 W/Cup
3. Phil Jaques (New South Wales) Age: 27 in 2007 World Cup
4. Andrew Symonds (Queensland) Age: 31 in 2007 World Cup
5. Damien Martyn (Western Australia) Age: 35 in 2007 World Cup
6. Mike Hussey (Western Australia) Age: 31 in 2007 World Cup
7. Michael Clarke (New South Wales) Age: 26 in 2007 World Cup
8. Shane Watson (Queensland) Age: 25 in 2007 World Cup
9. James Hopes (Queensland) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup
10. Cameron White (Victoria) Age: 23 in 2007 World Cup
11. Brad Haddin + W/Keeper (New South Wales) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
12. Brett Lee (New South Wales) Age: 30 in 2007 World Cup
13. Jason Gillespie (South Australia) Age: 32 in 2007 World Cup
14. Nathan Bracken (New South Wales) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
15. Glenn McGrath (New South Wales) Age: 37 in 2007 World Cup

NOTES:


1. All Player ages are during February - March 2007



2. Other fast bowling options are:

(A) Shaun Tait (South Australia) Age: 24 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Mike Lewis (Victoria) Age: 32 in 2007 World Cup
(C) Damien Wright (Tasmania) Age: 31 in 2007 World Cup



3. Some other Middle & Top order batsman possibilities are:

(A) Simon Katich (New South Wales) Age: 31 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Brad Hodge (Victoria) Age: 32 in 2007 World Cup
(C) David Hussey (Victoria) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
(D) Marcus North (Western Australia) Age: 27 in 2007 World Cup
(E) Dominic Thornely (New South Wales) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup

4. Other indistinct squad possibilities are:

(A) Shane Warne (Victoria) Age: 37 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Brad Hogg (Western Australia) Age: 35 in 2007 World Cup
(C) Daniel Cullen (South Australia) Age: 22 in 2007 World Cup
(D) Matthew Hayden (Queensland) Age: 35 in 2007 World Cup
(E) Michael Kasprowicz (Queensland) Age: 35 in 2007 World Cup





ENGLAND:

England possible World Cup 2007 15-Man Squad



1. Michael Vaughan * - Captain (Yorkshire) Age: 32 in 2007 World Cup
2. Andrew Strauss (Middlesex) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
3. Marcus Trescothick (Somerset) Age: 31 in 2007 World Cup
4. Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire) Age: 26 in 2007 World Cup
5. Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
6. Owaish Shah (Middlesex) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup
7. Paul Collingwood (Durham) Age: 30 in 2007 World Cup
8. Geraint Jones + - Wicket-Keeper (Kent) Age: 30 in 2007 World Cup
9. Ashley Giles (Warwickshire) Age: 34 in 2007 World Cup
10. Matthew Prior + - Wicket-Keeper (Sussex) Age: 25 in 2007 World Cup
11. Ian Blackwell (Somerset) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup
12. James Anderson (Lancashire) Age: 24 in 2007 World Cup
13. Steve Harmison (Durham) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup
14. Simon Jones (Glamorgan) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup
15. Darren Gough (Essex) Age: 36 in 2007 World Cup


NOTES:

1. If Darren Gough has retired or has not been selected in England’s squad, some other possibilities in his position are:-

(A) Kabir Ali (Worcestershire) Age: 26 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Liam Plunkett (Derbyshire) Age: 21 in 2007 World Cup
(C) Chris Tremlett (Hampshire) Age: 25 in 2007 World Cup


2. Some other middle-order possibilities in place of Owaish Shah are:-

(A) Ian Bell (Warwickshire) Age: 24 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Vikram Solanki (Worcestershire) Age: 30 in 2007 World Cup
(C) Alex Gidman (Gloucestershire) Age: 25 in 2007 World Cup
(D) Ed Joyce (Middlesex) Age: 28 in 2007 World Cup


3. Other options in the position of Ian Blackwell are:-

(A) Graham Napier (Essex) Age: 27 in 2007 World Cup
(B) Dimitri Mascarenhas (Hampshire) Age: 29 in 2007 World Cup
(C) Alex Loudon (Warwickshire) Age: 26 in 2007 World Cup

Erm...

maybe, but even with the super-sub rule they could still keep the normal 15 IMO.

West Indies:

Ramnaresh Sarwan*
Denesh Ramdin+
Chris Gayle
Wavell Hinds
Xavier Marshall
Brain Lara
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Marlon Samuels
Dwayne Smith
Carlton Baugh
Daren Powell
Jermaine Lawson
Ian Bradshaw
Corey Collymore
Fidel Edwards
Pedro Collins

*watches Scaly fly off the boil in rant*

West Indies:

S Chanderpaul (*)
CH Gayle
DS Smith
DR Smith
BC Lara
RR Sarwan
D Ramdin (+)
N Deonarine
RS Morton
WW Hinds
DJJ Bravo
ID Bradshaw
C Collymore
FH Edwards
TL Best
DB Powell

Ireland (now, that was interesting...):

JAM Molins (*)
DI Joyce
JP Bray (+)
NJ O'Brien (+)
EJG Morgan
PG Gillespie
DT Johnston
PJK Mooney
AGAM McCoubrey
AC Botha
WK McCallan
CM Armstrong
AR White
G Cooke
K Carroll
K O'Brien

Netherlands:

LP van Troost (*)
J Smits (+)
DLS van Bunge
AF Buurman
RN ten Doeschate
SF Gooke
AM Kervezee
TBM de Leede
MWA van Nierop
Adeel Raja
DJ Reekers
E Schiferli
WF Stelling
ES Szwarczynski
B Zuiderent
TN de Grooth (*shudders*)

England have been done already, so I'll take Bangladesh

1. / Habibul Bashar (c)
2. /+ Khaled Mahud (wk)
3. /o Mohammad Ashraful
4. / Javed Omar
5. / Rajin Saleh
6. / Nafees Iqbal
7. /o Aftab Ahmed
8. / Shahriar Nafees
9. /o Mohammad Rafique
10. o Mashrafe Mortaza
11. o Tapash Baisya
12. o Shahadat Hossain
13. /o Manjural Islam Rana
14. o Nazmul Hossain OR Mohammad Shahzada
15. / OR /o Tushar Imran OR Ehsanul Haque OR Farhad Reza OR Rashidul Haque OR Saqib Al
Hassan

Team

1. Shahriar Nafees
2. Javed Omar
3. Nafees Iqbal
4. Mohammad Ashraful
5. Habibul Bashar
6. Aftab Ahmed
7. Khaled Mashud
8. Mohammad Rafique
9. Mashrafe Mortaza
10. Tapash Baisya
11. Syed Rasel/Shahadat Hossain OR Manjural Islam Rana (batting above Mashud)

One of the more impressive tails that England will have put out. And no slow bowlers. It really is a team for all conditions.

:p

It's the West Indies, and we've got Loudon on the bench :p

Alex Loudon = the new Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? :p :D