There may be troubles ahead: England selection issues.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Burns/Sibley/Denly/Root/Stokes/Pope/Buttler/Woakes/Leach/Broad/Archer
Crawley/Curran/Mahmood/Parkinson

Three uncapped players among the back-ups (as well as Sibley in the XI). Very inexperienced squad. Hard to see Mahmood or Parkinson geting a game unless there are injuries.

[alfie]

Burns/Sibley/Denly/Root/Stokes/Pope/Buttler/Woakes/Leach/Broad/Archer
Crawley/Curran/Mahmood/Parkinson

Three uncapped players among the back-ups (as well as Sibley in the XI). Very inexperienced squad. Hard to see Mahmood or Parkinson geting a game unless there are injuries.

With only two games hard to see Crawley getting one either... Reckon those three are there just to get the feel of the squad. Must be a fair chance Curran plays over Woakes though ? Or possibly instead of Leach if the pitch seems to suggest a spinner is unnecessary ...

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yes, Curran or Woakes is difficult to call. But one will play because the tail will look dangerous without them.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Crawley's fca is 31. Wonder when England last picked some one with such an unremarkable fc record. Westley was flagged up as someone promoted with a poor domestic record, but he averaged 36.

Feel a bit sad Plunkett has been overlooked so rapidly for a white ball series.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Jennings averages 34. All the others (Duckett, Lyth, Denly, Malan, Roy etc) tend to be around 36-38. Haseeb averages 30, but that will have dropped significantly after he stopped playing for England. Crawley's 31.27 average including three fc tons suggests he's there as a future prospect.

[Slipstream]

What will the T20 team look like?

1 Bairstow
2 Banton
3 Malan
4 Morgan
5 Billings
6 Gregory
7 S Curran
8 T Curran
9 Jordan
10 Rashid
11 Mahmood

Brown Denly Parkinson Vince
Will it be Denly for his spin?

[sussexpob]

Crawley's fca is 31. Wonder when England last picked some one with such an unremarkable fc record

Why bother picking players who havent stepped up in county cricket, and who are not showing form? Call me dumb not to see Smith's masterplan, but how can a player who struggles against county attacks and cant buy a run, be expected to do better against world class attacks at the best level?

It begs the question as to what message we want to send players in county cricket. At the moment, it seems to be that mediocre play is fine. Half our team cant buy enough runs, but keep getting picked. And players who show very little quality get picked too. Then we cap the odd deserving youngster like Pope, and drop them after a game or 2, while someone averaging 20 less gets picked over and over again.

Selection policy filters down to player attitudes further down. When Fletcher picked a few guys in the early 2000s who got lost in the system, he told everyone that they'd be judged on what they could do in the now, not what they had done, and the national team benefited from it. But they key, he mostly targeted players who showed skill but seemed to lose themselves in a system in the mid to late 90s that fell apart, and was damaged. Its a different kind of damaged now.

Stick to picking players on form, with records that suggest they have excelled. Foakes averages 40 in tests, and gets dropped and departed for a player who cant be bothered to play FC cricket. He wont come back until he cracks runs around for fun, while he's replaced by an inferior player who also cant hit it off the square at the moment, and who's career suggest he has ever been able.

But I guess Smith is Oxbridge educated, and he wrote some wonderful books about sports no one cares about in England (nor sold a copy in a country where his analysis could be understood) ..... the great data analytics supremo who hasnt picked a single player who's data suggests worthy mention.

What a bloody chancer.

[Durhamfootman]

Crawley made it into the crapinfo CC team of the season so their writers obviously rate him. I confess to being a bit baffled by his inclusion in that team, but I've not seen him play. Certainly if he had anything of merit about him this season then it must have been early on, because I'm not aware that he's done anything lately.

But then that might be precisely why England have called him up, because England's record with debutants in recent years has been to keep an eye on them while they are in good form, but only call them up when they are completely out of nick....... which I guess means he's done everything required of him

[Durhamfootman]

His call up might even be as simple as Mr Ed looking at the 'most runs' column of the CC stats for 2019

1324 Sibley (call up)
975 Ballance (been there, done that)
969 Northeast (right school, but same position as the captain)
913 Cook (retired)
892 Bell Drummond (wrong school)
828 Kohler-Cadmore (bad boy, leave alone)
822 Hain (Aussie accent)
820 Crawley (by default, the next cab off the rank)

[bigfluffylemon]

Northeast has been a fairly consistent scorer in the CC in the last few years (although his 2018 season was pretty poor), but still has an FC average just shy of 40. Nonetheless, I agree with cricinfo's assessment that he seems destined to be James Hildreth mark 2 - consistent solid if unspectacular county performer who just never quite gets the call-up, for some unknown reason.

I thought years ago that Bell-Drummond was an England player in the making, but he's been inconsistent to say the least over the last few years, and still only has an FC average of 33. But quite why Crawley, who has only had one season in division 1 averaging 34, and whose form appears to have vanished in the latter half of the season has been picked and Northeast hasn't is baffling.

But then, there aren't really any CC performers who are banging the door down with consistent year-on-year form, and those few that do (Hildreth anyone?) don't get picked anyway. Ballance looks destined to be the next Ramprakash - flaying county attacks to all parts and showing glimpses of promise at international level but ultimately unable to convert. Sibley's had an outstanding season, but it's only one. Pope has had two very good seasons, albeit this one shortened due to injury, but he's only 21. May be a bit early to tell.

But let's face it, there are pretty slim pickings, especially in terms of top 3 material, in the county game right now. It's why we're in the hole we're in to begin with. The current batting line-up is rubbish, but the selectors keep going back to the same-old faces presumably because they're not convinced that any of the alternatives would do any better. My view is that they couldn't do much worse, so might as well have a shot.

[sussexpob]

The ECB and the guardians of the national team need to work out why there are slim pickings, and maybe ask some questions about the culture they have created in the domestic scene. To me its fairly obvious that picking batsman who dont play First Class cricket for years on end, or picking others who simply refuse to play, sends all the wrong messages. It tells everyone one step away from obvious stand out that there is no point trying to be better, and even to some players near the top.

Ollie Pope is a 21 year old who averages nearly 60.... frigging 60! A talent of such mega proportions in comparison to others, got less time than Jason Roy who cant be bothered to play much county cricket. He got four time less tests than Denly, a 33 year old journeyman type player who averages over 20 runs less. What are we saying here? Be miles and away the best scorer around, but after two games they sub you for a slogger from the limited overs side who cant defend his stumps?

Foakes does the hard work, comes in and does a job..... dropped for a guy who cant be bothered to play 4 day games.

Leach was told he was an immature guy with an attitude problem, and despite bossing the county game he watches Mason Crane, Bess, a batsman and another guy who stopped playing county cricket over him....... yet for all his lacking attitude, he wins two games by digging in with England in trouble, and averages 26 with the ball. Where was the thinking here? Because lets just say, it seemed the best course of action to actually pick the best performer.... sadly after giving games to 4 other players before him.

Apart from Archer, who'd probably have been capped 2-3 years ago without residency restrictions, has Smith actually made one competent pick yet?

[sussexpob]

The selectors really should be having an actual plan. Actual plans and consistent evidence of their thinking filter downwards. IF you pick Bell-Drummond and SNE for this tour, you actually say to everyone below "score runs, get picked....simple". You might then have scores go up as people start caring again.

BD and SNE were players touted for international careers. So if that was a sound assessment at the time, why ignore them once they start performing in the top ranges? You acknowledge they look better than others for years, they perform better than others? What else do you want?

Every player should know what is required to make it to the test side. They should know that target. ID have said as a selector "get inside the top 3 available run scorers, you go to NZ". Get everyone working towards that, eeking out every run.

That was the genius of Fletcher. He knew after years of damage to the system, there were players around who had drifted and lost motivation; once he started picking players he thought were of this type, others around started to get better. It encouraged everyone they had a chance.... and the quality of the game and players coming through went upwards sharply.

Throwing darts player photos and making picks on that does the opposite.

[Arthur Crabtree]

From his stats it looks like Drummond is someone who hasn't excelled at CC level. And he's played a lot at CC2 as well.

I agree that Smith is someone who believes in the genius hunch. But the evidence is that he hasn't got it.

It's funny that they (including before Smith) tried most county openers, and in the end the one who did best (that is the only one to average over 30 apart from Robson or Haseeb (who imploded)) is the one that scored the most county runs (Burns, though it's not known if Carberry might have done ok with an equal chance).

[Slipstream]

Flower, Shine and Such have been sacked. Giles needs to do the same with Smith and Taylor.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Flower was sacked as England coach years ago, or he's been sacked today as shadowy presence on the peripheries of coaching?