Arthur Crabtree wrote:Dawson is a bad selection, picked as their lead spinner. Moeen is now a part time bowler. It doesn't look like an attempt to field six bowlers just a bad attempt to pick a spinner.
OK, Moeen is now taking more wickets as a part time bowler...
So your theory is they just wanted a spinner , while keeping Moeen in the team as well ? But surely this whole six bowler idea started on the India trip as a means to fit
three spinners in the team - almost (though ultimately unsuccessful) an understandable move. I doubt many people expected it to continue in a home series.
However : Dawson had played the last Test. He made some useful runs and bowled tidily. They kept him for the first home match , presumably because (a) they expected a dry , spinning , pitch at Lord's - correctly as it happened ; and (b) due to concerns over the fitness of all four of the pace bowlers selected. Otherwise they would have been more likely to dispense with the fourth seamer as they have done in every recent case where a second spinner has been selected for a home Test.
I don't think this was a great idea ; but you could argue it worked quite well at Lord's.
Keeping the same team for Trent Bridge , however , made no sense. It was obvious that pitch was not one that called for two spinners. And likely to be one on which the more batsmen the better...but still they wouldn't make a change.
So it seems to me the ongoing selection is one of two things : an addiction to the six bowler plan or an unwillingness to make a choice between Dawson and Wood. Either one unsatisfactory . And they don't have that much time to sort out a fit for purpose team to send on an Ashes quest...
If you need six bowlers to get the other team out you're picking the wrong bowlers. Tell me the last time England - or anyone else - employed so many ?
I wouldn't make such a fuss about this if it weren't for my fear that they are just indecisive enough ( or stubborn enough - take your pick) to continue like this at The Oval !