well read has a half century today as well, i think if they go for a pure keeper itll be foster or read
on another note, all the batting spinners, are unbeaten centurions overnight as well, ali, borthwick(career best score as well) and samit, as well as rashid picking up a few wickets
I won't go back to Read. His keeping is great no doubt, but he had a fair amount of chances in tests before & never properly cemented himself as batsman.
Foster on the other hand never did get a proper run. And i've always had a theory if Flintoff was fitter & played more tests between 2001-2009, ENG would have been able to play Foster more.
This is so because a fitter Flintoff could have been played in a 4-man attack, instead of 5-man attack. Thus, Foster could have been picked for being the best keeper in ENG & we would not have wasted those years trying Geraint Jones/Tim Ambrose/early days Matt Prior - batsmen who were average keepers.
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woakes definately has something about him, from having watched him for the bears, but as beefy would say stokes has the mongrel. Agree at the moment that stokes is
#1 but woakes would offer something slightly different if his form dropped and the replacement would not impact the team balance too greatly. Which imo means woakes goes on tours as a spare bowler/all rounder, to prevent a early 2000 flintoff issue of the all rounder keeping his place just purely because he is an allrounder.
Of course county 4-day matches dont show on sky, but have seen him in many live domestic limited overs for ENG & i'm always puzzled how high his averages are. He does't look ass good as his #'s show at international level TBH.
Maybe in English conditions if he bats @ 7 versus certain teams, he could be sort of useful i'd concede. But overall I don't see a real international standard all-rounder in Woakes long term.
COmpton i agree with you he is perfect for 3, however i didnt include him as i really dont see the selectors going with him. But it would make sense as otherwise its a bits and pieces selection at 3
Ye that's true. Hoping the selectors get sense & pick him though. But given how they approaching the KP situation, ECB selectors are concerning me ATM.
Again borthwick i havent seen much of the warks durham games have happened to eother not be on tv or when i cant get down there, but for me too many good judges have said he has something to dismiss it out of hand. Although to go to a football refernce many said the same of the young m.city team of like 6 years ago(swp, barton,ireland,johnson) and due to lack of wise career moves and grit they have gone into obscority/never reached the heights that they seemed destined for
ENG have never produced a leg-spinner of note in history. A bit like Australia struggling to produce good off-spinners. ENG produce good left-arm spinner & some offies - while AUS produce good leggies.
The best two performing domestic spinner before the war in Dough Wright & Tich Freeman didn't even have great careers even. So bowling leg-spin is like a poisoned chalice in our cricket history.
With Borthwick, his bowling was non existent last season in domestic cricket. He was batting higher up the order & bowling less. So when Swann shockingly retired, I don't know what prompted them to call him up - their was no domestic form to based his selection on.
They were better of playing Panesar in the dead rubber or even Tredwell.
