As for Trott vs Bell. If I was going to bring either of them in at this stage it'd be Bell. The next World Cup is in the Subcontinent, so ability against spin bowling is vital. Bell is one of the best players of spin in England, and has gone back to Warwickshire and worked very hard on his One Day game to increase his scoring rate. Trott continues to look poor against spin in one day cricket. He struggles to rotate the strike, scores too slowly and doesn't appear to have a consistent boundary option. He doesn't play the powerful sweeps, he doesn't have a reverse sweep and I've never seen him skip down the track to a spinner. Kieswetter, Davies and Bell have all shown an ability to score quickly against spin, and look a lot better against spin. It'd be a massive risk playing Trott up the order in ODi's in the subcontinent I think.
Here are Davies' List A stats in the last 3 seasons FTR:
2008: 689 runs at 49.21 with a strike rate of 112.39
2009: 658 runs at 50.61 with a strike rate of 117.50
2010: 222 runs at 111.00 with a strike rate of 132.93
Hell of a player.
Not sure how much you can read into county averages, Chris Read looks accomplished in county cricket and averages less than 19 with the bat in both Tests and ODIs.
And the biggest example of why county records count for so little and mental strength counts for so much is a certain MR Ramprakash
MR Ramprakash
1st Class : 34,233 runs @ 54.59 (HS 301no)
Tests : 2,350 runs @ 27.32 (HS 154)
List A : 13,021 runs @ 39.94 (HS 147no)
ODIs : 376 runs @ 26.85 (HS 51)
And he's not a wicket-keeper which adds to the burden. I would not go with keepers batting as specialists either, they might be good enough batsmen for county matches, but international sides are less forgiving. And Kieswetter didn't exactly cover himself in glory, but neither have the likes of Prior, Jones and other keepers when asked to open. Personally I think England are still far too wrapped up in 'pinch-hitting', I'd rather have a hard hitting keeper down the order when the ball is older against second string bowlers
As for this series, well here are the England averages :
Morgan : 238 runs @ 59.50 (HS 103no)
Collingwood : 209 runs @ 41.80 (HS 95)
Strauss : 191 runs @ 38.20 (HS 87)
Pietersen : 95 runs @ 19.00 (HS 33)
Kieswetter : 69 runs 13.80 (HS 38) & 5/1 ct/st
Swann : 54 runs @ 18.00 (HS 33) & 8 wkts @ 20.38
Bresnan : 109 runs @ 36.33 (HS 34) & 1 wkt @ 236.00
Yardy : 66 runs @ 22.00 (HS 57) & 2 wkts @ 92.50
Wright : 69 runs 13.80 (HS 36) & 3 wkts @ 44.00
Broad : 7 runs @ 2.33 (HS 4) & 12 wkts @ 19.83
Anderson : 5 runs @ n/a (HS 5no) & 7 wkts @ 38.43
Split into batting, all-rounders and bowlers. Obviously Pietersen and Kieswetter had a poor series with the bat, but some of the all-rounders concern me more and Anderson's rather hit and miss bowling. TMS were talking about Broad and asking why Notts don't bat him up the order, probably because they aren't there to do what England want and will resent losing a good player for long spells - you sign a good player, what do you expect?!?!
Normally I'd put Broad into the all-rounders category, but as top wicket taker for England I figured he may as well go in as a bowler. I normally pick up on Bresnan and Wright, quite rightly so, but did Yardy impress either? A decent knock of 57 made up most of his runs, but he only took two wickets in the series. I had hoped he'd show good form, but he's no more worth his place on this series or overall than Wright or Bresnan
England ODI career averages
Strauss : 3138 runs @ 32.69 (HS 152, SR 77.25)
Kieswetter : 268 runs @ 29.78 (HS 107, SR 85.62)
Collingwood : 4843 runs @ 36.97 (HS 120no, SR 76.98) & 103 wkts @ 38.86
Pietersen : 3332 runs @ 42.18 (HS 116, SR 86.48) & 6 wkts @ 41.00
Morgan* : 1548 runs @ 41.84 (HS 115, SR 79.63)
Wright : 536 runs @ 21.44 (HS 52, SR 94.53) & 14 wkts @ 47.00
Bresnan : 368 runs @ 30.67 (HS 80. SR 94.36) & 26 wkts @ 41.46
Yardy : 115 runs @ 16.43 (HS 57, SR 58.67) & 9 wkts @ 40.11
Swann : 83 runs @ 13.48 (HS 34, SR 81.09) & 48 wkts @ 25.56
Broad : 345 runs @ 13.27 (HS 45no, SR 72.78) & 109 wkts @ 25.76
Anderson : 152 runs @ 6.08 (HS 15, SR 39.58) & 170 wkts @ 30.19
*I think that includes ODI runs for Ireland.
That is split into performances, whether actual performances qualify them as a batsman, quasi all-rounder or predominantly only doing it with the ball.
Strauss (yes) - average a little on the low side but ok, captaincy was poor yesterday
Kieswetter (maybe) - not quite good enough for an opener
Collingwood (yes) - fine with bat and ball, is about our best all-rounder
Pietersen (yes) - recent form aside he is worth a place in the side
Morgan (yes) - fine for now
Wright (no) - poor average with bat and ball, is in the side for scoring quickly but offers no great quantity of runs. Had a good chance to bat yesterday and make some runs, maybe not win the game, but he didn't take it
Bresnan (no) - doing ok with the bat, but unless he bats higher in the order his lack of wickets and their cost make him a non-viable all-rounder
Yardy (no) - if his averages were the other way round he'd be the best player in the world
Swann (yes) - needs to work on his batting to become a genuine all-rounder, but is our best bowler in both forms of the game
Broad (yes) - shame it is yes only for his bowling, but nonetheless he offers enough
Anderson (maybe) - supposedly our key bowler, but he is somewhat inconsistent
So as I've said before, the base of a good side but too many bits n pieces players and the balance is wrong. Batsman in for Wright, bowler in for Bresnan and all-rounder in for Yardy should be a good step in the right direction. We've got three doing enough in the bowling department (Anderson, Swann and Broad) and five (specialist) batting at the top doing enough (Strauss, Kieswetter, Pietersen, Collingwood and Morgan) so it is the crucial middle that is lacking.
Owzat added 17 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...
As for yesterday's match, well England blew it bigtime. Strauss didn't use all his best bowler's allocation, fiddling overs as is too often the case with too many bowling options. Wright is not a good bowler, he is handy, but his inclusion just gives the captain too many choices and he makes the wrong ones and gives overs to weaker bowlers instead of those who should take the ball.
Of course Bresnan not being up to opening the bowling doesn't help, and Anderson having a relatively poor game. Those 130+ runs off the last 11 overs cost England the match. Broad may have picked up four wickets but he and Anderson conceded 139 runs off their 20 overs which is 7 rpo
And as I gave our aussie counterparts on here some hope with the suggestion two early wickets would get them back in the game, so it was. I didn't quite anticipate a dramatic capitulation, but clearly only Collingwood was prepared to build an innings. The late flurry of runs created both actual and psychological pressure, if anything could be read into this series in relation to the Ashes, that psychological pressure telling would be what I would read into it, and how England responded (collapse)
Take nothing away from Tait, but England set themselves up for the fall by such poor late bowling and the aussies took advantage. Wright and Bresnan made cases for their continued retention with half-decent knocks, but that is about the size of what they offer and pressure was off with the game gone. Had they both hit 50s or 60s then you could make a case for them, but 20s and 30s aren't going to win games unless the games are set to be won by a quick 20 or 30 which isn't that often. Useful contributions in a lost cause, but neither contributes enough with bat or ball to merit a place in the side. They both have SRs of near 100 so that is why they are in the side, but Wright averages around 21 and doesn't bowl well enough, Bresnan may average over 30 with the bat but his bowling isn't good enough either.
Contributions of three of the 'all-rounders'/middle order to this series :
Yardy 57
Bresnan 34 and 27
Wright 36 & 2/34
Considering they played all five ODIs, and only Yardy didn't bat five times, that is a poor return
Combined : 244 runs @ 22.18 & 6 wkts @ 92.17 (SR 110.00, ER 5.03)
That includes three not outs, so effectively they contributed 49 runs and 1.2 wkts per ODI between them. Anyone thinking a low ER is good and counters a lack of wickets, it isn't and it doesn't. It gives the batting side say 50 free runs and they can score quickly off other bowlers because they have wickets in hand ie they are "free runs", cost nothing (in terms of wickets)
