Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

If county cricket is worth something then the following players should be considered.

Sibley
Balance
Northeast

Sibley and Northeast then. Ballance has pretty much proved he cannot do it consistently at this level.

Sibley
Burns
Northeast
Root
Stokes
??? - Ideally another batsman if Stokes is fully fit
Foakes/Bairstow/Buttler - This multiple keeper scenario hasn't worked
Curran/Woakes
Leach
Archer
Broad/Anderson - Doubt we'll often see them both play in the same team much longer

ianp1970 wrote:Sibley and Northeast then. Ballance has pretty much proved he cannot do it consistently at this level.

Sibley
Burns
Northeast
Root
Stokes
??? - Ideally another batsman if Stokes is fully fit
Foakes/Bairstow/Buttler - This multiple keeper scenario hasn't worked
Curran/Woakes
Leach
Archer
Broad/Anderson - Doubt we'll often see them both play in the same team much longer

Pope is guaranteed a place in the middle order. Reckon he'll bat 6.

Might be a query whether Mark Wood will get another game. And a second spinner, is that Moeen still?

Not sure Denly will be dropped just yet. And in reality, Bairstow and Buttler will stay! But Joe Root has been making year zero noises (presume he doesn't feel his place is at risk) so maybe there will be more changes than I expect.

A little crazy that in 5 or so years we've gone from picking test players in the one day side to picking one day players in the test side. One day they might learn to choose players based on their merit in the format they are choosing for... It can't be that hard.

ianp1970 wrote:Sibley and Northeast then. Ballance has pretty much proved he cannot do it consistently at this level.

Sibley
Burns
Northeast
Root
Stokes
??? - Ideally another batsman if Stokes is fully fit
Foakes/Bairstow/Buttler - This multiple keeper scenario hasn't worked
Curran/Woakes
Leach
Archer
Broad/Anderson - Doubt we'll often see them both play in the same team much longer

I think we'll see Wood feature on the SA tour at some stage too.

Sibley has had an excellent year, 1000 runs so far, after some years of promising but moderate run scoring. Jennings got picked on the back of one excellent year and we know how his test career went. In comparison, Rory Burns scored over a thousand runs (often well over a thousand runs) for 3 years running, before being considered and he's only starting to look like a test match opener of any quality.

Given the dearth of opening options available Sibley has probably earned the chance though... after that it's up to him to nail it down. Had there been more competition around the counties, I'd be suggesting that he needed at least one more 1000 run season for Warks before being considered.

another 50 for Denly, so his place will be secure for now, and only his position will have to be determined

As far as Pope is concerned he seems to be a promising player, nearly a thousand runs last season, but a fairly lengthy lay off means he hasn't had the chance to back that up. In a short season for him he has scored 400 runs, with a double hundred and one or two fifties. Played against India last year, of course.

Foakes is a name bandied around a lot. He has a reputation for being a good keeper, but only ever scores 600 runs a season in the CC, which may not be enough to force his way into the side. I'd rather see a top notch keeper who bats reasonably well, than a good batsman who drops things and misses stumpings, but I don't think England do. Pope is another wicketkeeper, of course, but I have no idea if he's good or not. He isn't described on crapinfo as a wicketkeeper-batsman, so he might be okay.

Will the ECB be tempted to try and find some way to fast-track Simon Harmer into the side? Would Harmer even be interested? Did he turn Kolpak because of a lack of international opportunity? I'll bet if he was interested and they could find some way of fiddling it, England would go for it in a heartbeat

GGAS wrote:A little crazy that in 5 or so years we've gone from picking test players in the one day side to picking one day players in the test side. One day they might learn to choose players based on their merit in the format they are choosing for... It can't be that hard.

don't worry... we'll have red ball players regularly featuring in the T20I sides soon. England can only see what's in front of them, they have no vision, no long term strategy, no anything, so they'll bounce around from one priority to another at the detriment to the things they aren't prioritising.

Still..... Root, I think, has got the message. The approach in the last 2 tests has changed markedly from the first 3. In a couple of days time when Bayleaf the Gardener has *modded* off to who cares where in the IPL, Root might start to think ahead and begin to assert himself more and do things his way, or at least I hope so. Or course if Flower comes back we can forget all that.... Get out there, Joe, and do as you're told.... don't worry your baby faced head about any of the strategy stuff... we have people better qualified than you to do that. All your job will be is to win the toss and score lots of runs... leave the rest to us... if what we told you isn't working, we'll be able to change things for you every couple of hours.... If I say bowl short... you bowl short, even if isn't working, we'll decide what's working or isn't working....don't ask to be involved in the decision making process as a refusal often offends.

Durhamfootman wrote:Will the ECB be tempted to try and find some way to fast-track Simon Harmer into the side? Would Harmer even be interested? Did he turn Kolpak because of a lack of international opportunity? I'll bet if he was interested and they could find some way of fiddling it, England would go for it in a heartbeat

Not that they've done it yet, but this is one of the many things that annoys so much about the ECB. After listening to England fans (not speaking for me) they decided to close down overseas players from qualifying as part of a rebranding exercise (in the wake of the KP affair). But you just knew that when the wind changed they would snap up whoever might cut corners to success. Like Archer.

Not that I am against qualifiers. But it would be better if the ECB at least tried to be consistent even when it might cost something to be so.

Sorry. Not the first time I've made that post.

it's a very valid point

and worth making more than once

I bash on about the same stuff all the time

Genuine question:

Other than Simon Harmer, does anyone know of any players born outside the UK that might have a chance of being our latest imports into the England team?

I know Olivier was mentioned but I believe the chances of that are a little more dubious.