England squad for Second Test

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England squad for second Test: Andrew Strauss (Middlesex, capt), Alastair Cook (Essex), Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire), Kevin Pietersen (Surrey), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), James Taylor (Nottinghamshire), Matt Prior (Sussex, wk), Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire), James Anderson (Lancashire), Steven Finn (Middlesex), Graham Onions (Durham).

Same as, but Ravi misses out for personal reasons and James Taylor is called up to replace him!

Watch the selectors now go with 5 bowlers...

Shelsey93 wrote:Playing specialist batsmen at 7 rarely works - they have to bat in unfamiliar conditions (most that reach the Test side will bat top 5 for their counties), and often have no chance to make an impact. It also dents their confidence. Last time that England tried that was with Ian Ward in the 2001 Ashes, and that hardly worked...

Not surprising that a 7 man specialist batsmen strategy didn't work V Australia in 2001, as it was Ian Ward that was that player (probably a prime candidate for a title of England's worse ever batsman), and it wasn't helped either that he had to play against a great Aussie bowling attack containing McGrath, Warne with Lee and Gillespie as their backups.

gboycottnut wrote:

Shelsey93 wrote:Playing specialist batsmen at 7 rarely works - they have to bat in unfamiliar conditions (most that reach the Test side will bat top 5 for their counties), and often have no chance to make an impact. It also dents their confidence. Last time that England tried that was with Ian Ward in the 2001 Ashes, and that hardly worked...

Not surprising that a 7 man specialist batsmen strategy didn't work V Australia in 2001, as it was Ian Ward that was that player (probably a prime candidate for a title of England's worse ever batsman), and it wasn't helped either that he had to play against a great Aussie bowling attack containing McGrath, Warne with Lee and Gillespie as their backups.

Ian Ward gets a lot of stick... but he averaged 40 in first-class cricket and his selection so low down the order, and at such a late stage in the Ashes preparations was stupid and always unlikely to work. The problem was therefore clearly a lack of a clear plan from England during this period... players were drafted in from the county scene at days notice (Bairstow and Taylor have been earmarked and prepared to play Tests at some point for years), and the team make up changed every game. But with everybody fit we could have had a decent unit - take 2001, when with proper planning Atherton, Trescothick, Butcher, Hussain, Thorpe, Stewart, Flintoff, Cork, Caddick, Gough, Tufnell ought to have at least competed. Indeed, I'd say that with consistent planning that team wouldn't have been a million miles off the current England side.

Shelsey93 wrote:Playing specialist batsmen at 7 rarely works - they have to bat in unfamiliar conditions (most that reach the Test side will bat top 5 for their counties), and often have no chance to make an impact. It also dents their confidence. Last time that England tried that was with Ian Ward in the 2001 Ashes, and that hardly worked...

Yeah it was a complete disaster for SA playing 7 specialist batsmen last test, 4 of them didnt contribute anything at all



Anyway sounds like Flower has confirmed hes batting at 6
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-south-africa-2012/content/story/574921.html

Sounds like the only other choice is between Finn and Bresnan, which again may come down to pitch conditions.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

Shelsey93 wrote:Playing specialist batsmen at 7 rarely works - they have to bat in unfamiliar conditions (most that reach the Test side will bat top 5 for their counties), and often have no chance to make an impact. It also dents their confidence. Last time that England tried that was with Ian Ward in the 2001 Ashes, and that hardly worked...

Yeah it was a complete disaster for SA playing 7 specialist batsmen last test, 4 of them didnt contribute anything at all

At least in Duminy's case he is a sort of all-rounder... though if I were them I'd have backed the top 6, and put in a new 'keeper, not because there's anything wrong with AB's 'keeping but because I'm a bit of worried of what it might do to his batting.

Interesting re the batsman at number 7. That was fairly common for England back then due to Alec Stewart still being a very good batsman who could bat in the top 4. I seem to remember Graeme Hick coming in at 8 in a Test vs Windies in 2000 and playing a match winning innings (they'd used a nightwatchman so he was down to bat at 7).

So by no means was it just for the 2001 Ashes and was an option due to the personnel available. And that's the point for me - we don't have an allrounder good enough now to bat at 7 so we generally go with the 4 man attack.

VTR wrote:Interesting re the batsman at number 7. That was fairly common for England back then due to Alec Stewart still being a very good batsman who could bat in the top 4. I seem to remember Graeme Hick coming in at 8 in a Test vs Windies in 2000 and playing a match winning innings (they'd used a nightwatchman so he was down to bat at 7).

So by no means was it just for the 2001 Ashes and was an option due to the personnel available. And that's the point for me - we don't have an allrounder good enough now to bat at 7 so we generally go with the 4 man attack.

Well if we don't have an all-rounder good enough to bat at 7, how about selecting a batsman who can bowl a bit. There are good candidates if England want to go down this route. Ravi Bopara, Ben Stokes, Samit Patel and Rikki Clarke are just 4 players who are good enough to bat in the top 6 for their own respective county's. Anyway the selection of someone like Graeme Hick to bat at 8 back in 2000 was I believe one of the then England coach Duncan Fletcher's masterstrokes in helping England to convincingly beat the Windies in a test series for the first time after many series defeats V them.

Well presumably boycott that's what they wanted from Bopara. The other 3 don't stand out to me, Stokes has potential but we've been saying that for 2 years.

Correct on the Windies series. We didn't have a decent spinner on non-helpful pitches back then either so didn't select one, so the team make up for some of the Tests was specialist batsman at 7 with a 4 man pace attack (2 of which - Cork and White were handy with the bat). I think we gambled on the extra batting in a tight series and it paid off.

VTR wrote:Well presumably boycott that's what they wanted from Bopara. The other 3 don't stand out to me, Stokes has potential but we've been saying that for 2 years.

Correct on the Windies series. We didn't have a decent spinner on non-helpful pitches back then either so didn't select one, so the team make up for some of the Tests was specialist batsman at 7 with a 4 man pace attack (2 of which - Cork and White were handy with the bat). I think we gambled on the extra batting in a tight series and it paid off.

I really like the idea of having a specialist batsman batting at number 7 as it creates an illusion that the batting lineup has much more depth and strength than is really the case. Also such a strategy must surely put pressure into the heads and minds of the opposition bowlers.

Shelsey93 wrote:But with everybody fit we could have had a decent unit - take 2001, when with proper planning Atherton, Trescothick, Butcher, Hussain, Thorpe, Stewart, Flintoff, Cork, Caddick, Gough, Tufnell ought to have at least competed. Indeed, I'd say that with consistent planning that team wouldn't have been a million miles off the current England side.

I'd say that was a decent unit - fond memories of following that England team. The 2000 series was the first win vs Windies for 30-odd years and was a great close series. Then the Winter double of winning in Pakistan and SL was a phenomenal achievement, equal to me of anything else an England Test team has achieved in my lifetime. Ok, they fell way short in the Ashes but vs that Aussie team a drubbing was to be expected.