They won't be going 5 bowlers after UAE.
It'll probably be
Strauss
Cook
Trott
KP
Bell
Patel
Prior
Broad
Swann
Anderson
Panesar
With Patel bowling 10-15 in a day.
Though I'd stick both Bopara and Patel in with Bell missing out.
I agree they won't go five bowlers, not after the batting frequently failed against spin, and rightly so in my view.
I would not play Prior as a six and Bresnan isn't a seven, an order like the one highlander suggested is too long a 'tail', I suspect four bowlers may have to work a lot but I think five would too for little extra advantage other than the comfort blanket of having three seamers. Don't Sri Lanka normally just bowl 6-10 overs of seam then switch to spinners?
Five bowlers is a poor use of resources, if conditions are good enough to bowl sides out cheaply then it is wasteful, if they are good batting tracks it's just an extra bowler who has to toil and one less batsman. IF I were going to include a fifth bowler it wouldn't be in the 1st Test, we need to avoid defeat not go chasing victory, get all used to the conditions. I do wonder if some on here have forgotten already we lost to Pakistan THREE-NIL last series.
Bresnan has a healthy batting average, but over only a handful of innings and NONE in Sri Lanka, Pakistan or India. He has scored 91 in Bangladesh but that doesn't count for much. He also got only one chance to bat and scored 14, so there's little indication of his ability to play in these conditions.
Bell was a typical ECB selection, lacking imagination and sticking with the 'in crowd' regardless of form. As they stick with it regardless of dead rubbers etc that means there's little experience in reserve so when the crux comes they have few alternatives because they didn't try them when the time was right. So we have the same concerns we had last series, KP is capable but also capable of getting himself out, the last batsman is a worry and if the openers don't get runs then the whole side could be in trouble.
