England 17-man squad

[four_or_six]

Yeah, I agree with that about the two spinners. And if it's that good a spinning pitch, then Swann will just have to bowl well and we're okay.

 

[rivera213]

Indeed, and I've long thought that it should be a "no". The question seems to be being raised on two fallacies - one, that it's just about certain that the pitch will be a rank Bunsen (it isn't - it's merely more likely than not), and two, that Australia are utterly hopeless against spin.

Swann gives it a rip, and the good thing about a slow wicket is that you can bowl it faster out of the hand and (theoretically) the ball should still react to the revolutions and turn once it hits the wicket.

Rashid isn't a conventional leggie, he uses a scrambled seam and I honestly don't know how much turn he'll get, but since Australia haven't seen him I think it'd be worth a gamble baring in mind they struggled against Mishra. I don't think he'd be as successful against Australia as Mishra was recently but who knows?

Whilst they aren't completely hopeless against spin, they aren't particularly great either.

Ponting is vulnerable against RH offies and Harbhajan has the wood over him, Hughes probably hasn't faced a bowler like Swann on a wicket which offers assistance so there's no telling how he'll go, Hussey, Katich and Watson all fell to Harbhajan a couple of times each and even Sehwag bagged a 5-for!

If India were the touring team then I'd say it was a pointless exercise playing 2 spinners but Australia are different. They are always vulnerable against swing and spin.

The Cardiff wicket is similar to those in India being that they start of pretty slow and offer assistance then gradually breaks up so day 5 of a test should offer a lot of assistance which is why people believe playing 2 spinners would be the best way to win. It doesn't do much through the air at Cardiff from what I've heard.

 

[Redbacks]

If India were the touring team then I'd say it was a pointless exercise playing 2 spinners but Australia are different. They are always vulnerable against swing and spin.

That would be: top class spin and swing mind you. The Australian team is weaker but I still think when given the chance to be 'front runners' we can perform very well. As seen in the first two tests in SA. Then when we front up against a big score, such as consistently seen when we played in India, we look vulnerable and not so sure about the balance between attack and defence; Clarke, Ponting, Hussey, Haddin. Thus occasionally resulting in a big collapse = big test loss.

I await to see how aggressive Siddle and Johnson go at the lower order of England, and how these batters handle it.

 

[Golaxi]

onions

why is graham Onions not seen as first choice? he looked one of our best bowlers to me? one of the quickest in the team aswell, surely losing him would be to a much slower bowler? its not like he's innacurate.

with whatever team we put out we should have good batting capabilities right down to number 9. something we might need knowing our crumbly batting order.

hows strauss been doing recently with the bat? i swear he's on some worrying mega downturn of runs?

 

[superkingdave]

Just watched Embury and Edmunds spin England to an innings victory on day 3 of the 4th Ashes test in 86/87 to retain the Ashes

 

[Burgey]

Just watched Embury and Edmunds spin England to an innings victory on day 3 of the 4th Ashes test in 86/87 to retain the Ashes

I recall that vividly. I still regard that very day as the official lowest point of Australian cricket in my time, and argaubly ever. Not because they lost to England, though that was bad enough, but because of the abject surrender by our fellas.

 

[superkingdave]

Anyway, Lancashire are playing Notts at trent bridge the same time as the warm ups. The selections mean that Lancashire will go there without Flintoff, Anderson and Mahmood, whilst Sidebottom will conveniently be available for Notts(Swann and Broad missing).

Now Lancashire seem to be better of without Flintoff anyway and we could hardly have expected to have him or Anderson available, but if the sides were picked on merit surely Sidebottom should be playing for the Lions and Mahmood left out? Notts would still beat us anyway given our batting. At least Cheetham might get a chance.

 

[superkingdave]

I recall that vividly. I still regard that very day as the official lowest point of Australian cricket in my time, and argaubly ever. Not because they lost to England, though that was bad enough, but because of the abject surrender by our fellas.

I object to the use of the word abject. Should be replaced with glorious.

I liked the demise of Geoff Marsh, was clearly unsettled by the fact he'd gloved one straight to short leg and not walked, and ended up running himself out.

 

[Richard]

If India were the touring team then I'd say it was a pointless exercise playing 2 spinners but Australia are different. They are always vulnerable against swing and spin.

That would be: top class spin and swing mind you.

Purely and simply, any batting unit will struggle against top-class spin and swing. Really good bowlers - ie, top-class swingers and top-class spinners - can trouble anyone, however good.

 

[Richard]

I recall that vividly. I still regard that very day as the official lowest point of Australian cricket in my time, and argaubly ever. Not because they lost to England, though that was bad enough, but because of the abject surrender by our fellas.

And just to think, it was followed just 2-and-a-half years later by the lowest point of English cricket ever.

That Ashes was the battle for the wooden spoon. Probably the only time it's ever been such a thing.

 

[social]

Purely and simply, any batting unit will struggle against top-class spin and swing. Really good bowlers - ie, top-class swingers and top-class spinners - can trouble anyone, however good.

And that's the problem with the ridiculous clamouring for 2 spinners because Oz can't play it

Adil Rashid - from what I've seen, he's years away from being international class

Monty - sucked for quite a while

Swann - jury still out

Anyway, what happens if Oz wins the toss, bats and strolls to 500+ against a spin-heavy attack that struggles in unfavourable conditions?

Could be a sledge-hammer blow that could effectively see chances of an Ashes victory gone within 1.5 days

 

[BoyBrumby]

No real surprises in the 16 I suppose, although would've liked to see either Vaughan or Harmison ahead of Bresnan because both are more likely to play a part in the actual series and the big lump's in pretty horrible nick with the ball too.

Solanki in the Loins is mildly surprising tho. Has been in decent form, but is past 30 and ex-ICL too. Would've thought Trott (highest scorer in both forms on the second string's winter tour to NZ), Hildreth (younger and scoring runs, albeit on a road) or even Dalrymple (more runs than any English batter this year, excluding Blackwell and semi-decent spin option) had more to offer.

 

[Golaxi]

.

I recall that vividly. I still regard that very day as the official lowest point of Australian cricket in my time, and argaubly ever. Not because they lost to England, though that was bad enough, but because of the abject surrender by our fellas.

mate try being an england supporter. we abjectly surrenderd 5 nil to your lot!

 

[wpdavid]

This is true. I think its a direct shoot out between Onions and Rashid based on their performance against the touring Aussies in the warm up game for that final berth at Cardiff with the added possibility of course that if both of them get tonked around that Panesar might play.

The other variable is if Harmison takes a bunch of Aus wickets for the Lions he may yet leapfrog back into the side. Rightly or wrongly.

 

[pup11]

And that's the problem with the ridiculous clamouring for 2 spinners because Oz can't play it

Adil Rashid - from what I've seen, he's years away from being international class

Monty - sucked for quite a while

Swann - jury still out

Anyway, what happens if Oz wins the toss, bats and strolls to 500+ against a spin-heavy attack that struggles in unfavourable conditions?

Could be a sledge-hammer blow that could effectively see chances of an Ashes victory gone within 1.5 days

England could prepare really dry, rough and slow pitches which might assist spinners from day 1, because they virtually have no threat whatsoever from Australia in the spin department, and not only that, preparing such tracks would also help them nullify the effect that Aussie quicks might have to a great extent, so in that scenario picking two spinners in the XI could prove to be a very smart ploy for them.

 

[tooextracool]

The other variable is if Harmison takes a bunch of Aus wickets for the Lions he may yet leapfrog back into the side. Rightly or wrongly.

Well if the Cardiff pitch turns out to be anything like it is expected to be, for his own sake I hope he doesnt get picked. I would say that that would be one of the poorest selections the English selectors have ever made but it wouldnt be true because they have done worse.

 

[tooextracool]

Rashid isn't a conventional leggie, he uses a scrambled seam and I honestly don't know how much turn he'll get, but since Australia haven't seen him I think it'd be worth a gamble baring in mind they struggled against Mishra. I don't think he'd be as successful against Australia as Mishra was recently but who knows?

Rashid bowls with a lot of sidespin, similar to that of Danish Kaneria, which means that hes not likely to get that much turn but he seems to be quite efficient at using drift. Needs a lot of international/A tour experience does the kid.

 

[rivera213]

That would be: top class spin and swing mind you. The Australian team is weaker but I still think when given the chance to be 'front runners' we can perform very well. As seen in the first two tests in SA. Then when we front up against a big score, such as consistently seen when we played in India, we look vulnerable and not so sure about the balance between attack and defence; Clarke, Ponting, Hussey, Haddin. Thus occasionally resulting in a big collapse = big test loss.

We can only hope for big collapses in the Ashes.

Clarke and Katich will be better this time round than in 2005. Clarke is twice the batsman he was then and Katich has fitted into the moderately scoring opening role very well. They aren't cheap wickets.

Hughes will face the biggest test of his career to date, I don't think he will capitulate or anything since he's too good for that but hopefully we can get into him early. Most importantly once he's down we need to keep him down, he obviously has loads of mental strength seeing what he did in SA after a 1st over duck in the 1st game and I don't want to see 3 centuries in 4 tests!

How Haddin, Watson and Hussey go remains to be seen though I expect Hussey to do very well and I believe I picked him as top Aussie run scorer in another thread.

I think Watson will be out of his depth in this series, Haddin will be steady but nothign spectacular. He was do well at the Oval.

I await to see how aggressive Siddle and Johnson go at the lower order of England, and how these batters handle it.

Siddle will go very hard at the lower order batsmen, that's where he'll get the majority of his wickets (maybe Prior too which be positions 6-11). I'm not saying he wont take any of the top and middle order batsmen, but I'm sure if he ends up with 20 wickets or something, 13 or 14 of them will be lower order players (which in itself wont be too shabby since Broad, Flintoff and Swann are all 30 average test players in this day and age).

Mitch will probably concentrate more on the top and middle order, if he happens to take lower order players too then great but I'd be shocked if he uses too much energy up on the lesser batsmen.

I think Siddle vs Bopara & Prior and Mitch vs KP & Freddie will be good battles to watch. Bopara being a great driver of the ball may also be vulnerable against Siddle's seamed-in delieveries so an lbw is on the cards.

My appetite is whetted for KP vs Mitch. Damn, that should be good to watch!

why is graham Onions not seen as first choice? he looked one of our best bowlers to me? one of the quickest in the team aswell, surely losing him would be to a much slower bowler? its not like he's innacurate.

with whatever team we put out we should have good batting capabilities right down to number 9. something we might need knowing our crumbly batting order.

Onions should be the new ball partner of James Anderson IMO. Yes, he used to be a mediocre bowler but he has bowled much better than his stats have showed over the last 2-3 seasons and this season has bowled well in almost every game.

He can get to 90mph+, but he's best around 84-87mph moving the ball away from RH just outside off stump or swinging it in to LH.

I think he needs to be picked for a couple of reasons:

1- He can swing the new ball which will be useful against a team who are vulnerable against (accurate and 84-87mph) swing as I said previously. That in itself is a plus.

2- He has the best stats (and has bowled the best by all reports) of any English bowler. If you don't pick him then the ECB are basically saying "it doesn't matter how well you bowl or how many wickets you take, if you're not in our clique you're not getting in".

3- He bowled better than Broad by some distance in the 2 matches against the West Indies and if Broad is in then Onions definitely is. If Broad had a test batting average of 15 or lower, he wouldn't be in the team. It's about picking the 5 best bowlers aginst Australia, Broad is comfortably the 6th best seamer we've got (Anderson, Flintoff, Onions, Sidebottom, Harmison above him).

hows strauss been doing recently with the bat? i swear he's on some worrying mega downturn of runs?

He has been pretty poor recently, though it's best to get a lean spell whilst playing county cricket than in the Ashes. People forget he scored 2 centuries in 2005 (granted, he didn't do much other than that in terms of batting) so he doesn't have only bad memories of playing Australia.

Purely and simply, any batting unit will struggle against top-class spin and swing. Really good bowlers - ie, top-class swingers and top-class spinners - can trouble anyone, however good.

That's obviously true, but Australia seem to struggle against even "very good" spin and "good" swing. That's not to say a good swing bowler will run through their unit, but Anderson is a very good swing bowler (sure, pretty much useless outside of England or, theoretically, Pakistan) so he should take wickets.

If Swann bowls to his best, he is a very useful bowler buut he doesn't do it all the time. He better cash in at Cardiff though since he's the only guaranteed spinner to play. I'm hoping 7-8 wickets in the match, mostly in their 2nd Innings.

And that's the problem with the ridiculous clamouring for 2 spinners because Oz can't play it

Adil Rashid - from what I've seen, he's years away from being international class

Monty - sucked for quite a while

Swann - jury still out

Anyway, what happens if Oz wins the toss, bats and strolls to 500+ against a spin-heavy attack that struggles in unfavourable conditions?

Could be a sledge-hammer blow that could effectively see chances of an Ashes victory gone within 1.5 days

Well whoever bats first @ Cardiff wont lose the game so it wont matter if we have 2 spinners or 4 seamers if we lose the toss.

But scouts have pretty much guaranteed Cardiff will have a wicket favourable to spin so it'll be dependant on how well Swann and possibly 1 other bowl rather than pitch conditions.

If they bowl poorly on a wicket which suits spin then they deserve to be clubbed.

I don't think the jury is out on Swann when he bowls well. It made me laugh when Warne said Hauritz is as good as if not better than Swann. I'm a huge Warne fan (when he wasn't owning our batsmen that is) but he doesn't half come up with some crap now and then. Lol

I don't disagree with your assessment, and if there's to be a 2nd spinner it has to be Rashid for me given Monty's ****e start to the season.

No real surprises in the 16 I suppose, although would've liked to see either Vaughan or Harmison ahead of Bresnan because both are more likely to play a part in the actual series and the big lump's in pretty horrible nick with the ball too.

Vaughan is done, his great record against Australia in the past means nothing. Let's bring back Graham Thorpe too if past records are what get a person into a team.

Harmison has bowled well but how long are the ECB going to reward laziness and a less than professional attitude?

Harmison never gets himself ready for away tours and treats it as though it's his right to play for England at test level.

It'll be a case of the tail wagging the dog if he's let back in. You'd put up with it if he were Dennis Lillee level or even Bob Willis at peak, but Harmison has never been "great", he was comfortably the 4th best bowler in 2005 and that's the best I've sen him bowl barring the 7-12 innings.

 

[S Chanderpaul]

Shame there is no Woakes or Trott in the Lions squads, but I guess they'll play for Warwickshire against England so the selectors should get a decent look.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Vaughan is done, his great record against Australia in the past means nothing. Let's bring back Graham Thorpe too if past records are what get a person into a team.

Harmison has bowled well but how long are the ECB going to reward laziness and a less than professional attitude?

Harmison never gets himself ready for away tours and treats it as though it's his right to play for England at test level.

It'll be a case of the tail wagging the dog if he's let back in. You'd put up with it if he were Dennis Lillee level or even Bob Willis at peak, but Harmison has never been "great", he was comfortably the 4th best bowler in 2005 and that's the best I've sen him bowl barring the 7-12 innings.

I'm not advocating Vaughan or Harmison to play, but think either has more to offer in the imminent series than not-so-tiny Tim. Fred goes down on the morning of a test and we play Bresnan? Can't see it myself.

Check out the FC bowling averages for the season for confirmation. Even allowing for Timothy's putative all-rounder status, Harmison's taken over twice as many wickets at less than half the cost.