Pick your England team for the first test next summer

[karolkarol]

Cook
Robson/Root - best early season form gets the slot
Compton - best 3 in the country with Trott out
KP
Bell
Stokes
Prior
Broad
Anderson
Onions - Early season in England a must pick
Panesar

 

[blockerdave]

I think you're being unfair on Swann there. Certainly some alarming rumours around about Flower preparing to make KP a scapegoat though.

if you go back to the KP Genius twitter thing, it was basically a mate of Broad's egged on by Swann trying to drive KP out, and due to the weakness of Strauss/Flower, it almost succeeded.

Pulling out mid-tour means he either was never right and should never have gone, which makes him a coward for not owning up to it from the beginning, or more likely buckled from being sledged and slogged like he'd never been before in his life. Absolute w*nker in my book. Always has been.

Flower is massively overplaying his hand. A couple of the KPs dismissals in Aus really made me despair, but when you understand the larger context they're a bit more understandable. As I say even when we were winning Flower has had us playing some awful, uninspiring and turgid cricket. I'd be very happy to see him gone.

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More I think about it, I am not sure how to get him into the side, but i'd like to get Morgan in with a view to him becoming captain - he's seemed a decent tactician in charge of the ODI side.

 

[Lebanna]

I actually agree with you Blocker, with regards to Morgan at least.

Our fundamental problem since becoming number 1 back in 2011 is the batting. Our bowlers have gotten us out of trouble on a lot of occasions after less than stellar batting performances and having not passed 400 in such a long time is a real issue.

Therefore my England for the summer is all about bolstering our batting in both strength and confidence. As mentioned before SL have a very weak pace attack so is the ideal series to build the confidence, therefore:

Cook
Root ---> he is the long term plan therefore get him there and stick with him
Compton ---> as other have said, best number 3 without trott
Pietersen
Bell
Morgan ---> for his experience and have him as Vice captain if Cook stays
Prior/Buttler ---> depends on county form
Stokes ---> having him below prior/buttler means he can counter attack a bit more freely
Broad
Finn/Borthwick/Kerrigan ---> depending on whether or not you want a specialist spinner or the extra pace of Finn
Anderson

Instead of Morgan you could have Balance. Technically you could move the keeper & stokes up in the order to get both Finn and a spinner in, but I feel that would give us too many options for bowling, especially given KP/Root's part-time and we desperately need an improved batting line-up and performance.

e: just thinking, Bopara could also come in at 6 giving even more bowling options if needed (although I don't think so)

 

[karolkarol]

More I think about it, I am not sure how to get him into the side, but i'd like to get Morgan in with a view to him becoming captain - he's seemed a decent tactician in charge of the ODI side.

Another promising player on a backwards trajectory. Nowhere near the level of Finn though.

Agree with you on Flower but looking around England for alternatives, there don't seem to be many innovators knocking about. To me the bigger problem is Cook. He is singularly uninspiring and wholly devoid of ability to think outside the box when things aren't going his way.

KP being KP I really cannot see him disappearing quietly into the night and nor do I think he should. If Flower and Cook can't manage KP that is a fault on their part. Michael Vaughan summed it up really well in a recent article.

 

[barmyarmy]

More I think about it, I am not sure how to get him into the side, but i'd like to get Morgan in with a view to him becoming captain - he's seemed a decent tactician in charge of the ODI side.

Piers or Eoin?

 

[blockerdave]

Another promising player on a backwards trajectory. Nowhere near the level of Finn though.

Agree with you on Flower but looking around England for alternatives, there don't seem to be many innovators knocking about. To me the bigger problem is Cook. He is singularly uninspiring and wholly devoid of ability to think outside the box when things aren't going his way.

KP being KP I really cannot see him disappearing quietly into the night and nor do I think he should. If Flower and Cook can't manage KP that is a fault on their part. Michael Vaughan summed it up really well in a recent article.

well i think cook was made captain precisely because flower knew he wouldn't rock the boat tactically, because he doesn't have a tactical mind and would carry on by the numbers. arguably the most positive thing cook has done as captain is insist on KP being brought back, but then he hasn't had the strength to back that up and have him in the inner circle of the tactics etc.

i think the batsmen have been our big problem for a long time, but nevertheless I think Anderson has to go. He has simply burnt out. he is also another part of the problem with the negativity - he basically insists on Cook protecting him rather than having catchers in.

and saker must be sacked for what he has done to Finn, and we need to get Finn in, tell him to bowl fast and aggressive and forget everything Saker has ever said to him. Panesar has to be in because every other conceivable spinner is gonna be slaughtered by SL/India, and we can't have Finn/Anderson/Panesar in the tail, so for me Anderson is the one who should go.

 

[vaibhavtewatia]

Cook
Carberry/Root
Bell/Root
Taylor/Bell
Pietersen
Stokes
Prior
Mills
Broad
Finn/Rankin
Anderson

Haven't seen much of Borthwick, and without Swann the Englishmen should look to go with an all pace attack against India and Lanka.

Finn wasn't very bad in the England Ashes and tbf to him it was mostly Haddin and the lower order batsmen who caused him a lot of trouble, which had also impacted the current Ashes series to an extent.

Mills can turn out to be a very good inclusion too.

 

[karolkarol]

I agree to an extent about Anderson, he has very much been the victim of his own success and Cook has become completely over reliant on him. This alongside the fact that for a good while now our third seamer, whoever has played, has generally been shit has meant that Anderson, as you say, has been over bowled and burnt out.

Give him a few months off and see how he comes back from it before casting him onto the scrap heap. That said, he would need to be managed a bit more carefully than he has been.

 

[Haarithan]

Thought I was alone regarding bringing back Morgan to the test side. Has that bit of an X-factor in him, plus I rate his captaincy very highly. Big yes for me at #6 .

 

[karolkarol]

Don't get me wrong, as an Ireland fan I rate Morgan but at test level he is down the pecking order. Stokes has a higher FC average and obviously offers significantly more with the ball as does Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance's FC average is light years ahead of Morgans.

I can see Morgan going down in history, rightly or wrongly, as Englands Michael Bevan.

 

[MUFC1987]

The problem with Morgan is, because he plays in the IPL he's never around at the start of the season for the First Class games. If he was playing those and putting up some decent numbers then you could see him being picked, but for the early Tests, he's never going to get picked off the back of IPL form, because we tried that a few years ago and it didn't work.

 

[Deleted member 11215]

I am far from convinced that Mills is ready. As an Essex fan I've seen him a few times and it's all a bit scattergun still. Give him a year of county cricket playing week in week out and then have a look at him.

Agree that KP is being smeared by an agenda. I'd like to get rid of KP and Flower for it all but seeing as none if it seems to be KP then flower should go, but you can't make it look like a player is bigger than the coach.

Also I'd love to see Ravi get another go in the middle order but maybe his time has passed

 

[ste_mc_efc]

I'd give Moen Ali a shot at 3. Us beardy folk need to stick together.

I'd go something like

Cook
Robson
Ali
KP
Bell
Root
Prior
Broad
Finn
Anderson
Panesar

I'd like to fit Stokes in as he impressed in the ashes, but he can come in at any point for basically anyone and shift the line-up around. Could maybe even go without a spinner with Ali, kp and root in the side.

 

[ChinamanSpin]

I feel that Root has been overhyped and Bell overrated (especially at three) for too long now. The problem is, if they are selected for the first test they will probably score big against Sri Lanka in easy games in home conditions. I'd pick Bell and send Root back to county cricket. Carberry has barely scored runs in CCD2 and Compton has scored lots of runs in CCD1 so Compton comes in, although he should never have been dropped. I hope that Trott will come back as Tresco did in 2006 but I'll leave that place up for contention in the early months of county cricket. If it's an opener, I'd put Compton at 3. I think Anderson needs to start working hard again so he's out for now. If Bairstow plays for again for England before 2016 I'll be disappointed and Borthwick is not a bowler.
1. Cook (c) 2. Compton/____ 3._____/Compton 4. KP 5. Bell 6. Stokes 7. Kieswetter 8. Jordan(dependent on ODI's and county cricket) 9. Broad 10. Finn 11. Panesar
12th man (for Jordan): Rankin

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

can we drop ian bell? I know that doesn't seem to be on anyones mind but everyone else is getting to blame people and I really don't like ian bell. I'm prepared to accept stokes in the team though on account of his performances in the ashes, even if I think another batsman should be on the radar.

Cook
Compton
Trott
KP
Ballance
Stokes
Prior
Broad
Bresnan
Anderson
Panesar

hope Trott is ok to play again, give compton the spot he deserves given his efforts, ballance at 5 who has been killing it in CC the last year. Bresnan because in england you don't need speed and to hit the deck hard, he'll be fine, better to give mills another season to have a look at him. Panesar did well against sri lanka and india so give him a go. Keep Prior because he's still amongst the best in the world. get beat by india then drop everyone and publically execute KP for holing out to mid-on. twice.