New ‘Team England’
The waiting is over. The question has been answered. The era of a new English cricket team has been officially ushered in and it’s all systems go. New coach Peter Moores has made a statement. He’s done it. This is the one. The New England Squad. Wow. Exciting.
Oh wait, it’s the same squad as the one that lost 5-0 in Australia.
Hmm. Way to make a statement, Pete.
Actually, that was a bit of a lie. I was really going for a sensationalist start. This is big news, really and there are some interesting selections that have attempted to answer a couple of the “big” questions.
- Andrew Strauss (capt)
- Alastair Cook
- Owais Shah
- Ian Bell
- Kevin Pietersen
- Paul Collingwood
- Andrew Flintoff
- Matt Prior (wk)
- Liam Plunkett
- Monty Panesar
- Steve Harmison
- Matthew Hoggard
On paper it is moreorless the same side that lost in Australia, and largely the same side that didn’t do much good in the West Indies. But Vaughan out through injury, Andrew Strauss will lead the side (and not Freddie) and Matt Prior is taking over the role as wicket-keeper from Paul Nixon, ahead of the two other most recent failures – Chris Read and Geraint Jones. Liam Plunkett is an interesting choice ahead of Jimmy Anderson and Sajid Mahmood – both of whom figured much more regularly than Plunkett in the last 12 months – but neither took capitalised the opportunity so Plunkett gets his shot. Owais Shah is the only notable addition, having played 1 Test in his International career to-date.
There was always a danger that, on the back of the Ashes fiasco and the new regime under Moores, that we would be expecting massive changes that show a commitment from the England side to be better. All of the players in the squad have come in for some stick in recent times and undoubtedly there will have been replacements suggested. But fortunately, on their return from the Caribbean, each of the players in this squad that they actually are the best players in the country. The name most obviously missing is that of Marcus Trescothick, but England should be in no rush to get him back in the side.
Considering that the West Indian cricket is in an even worse state than the English at the moment, foremost with the departure of Brian Lara, England enter the series as clear favourites. But stranger things have happened and never under-estimate the English ability to lose a game of cricket that they really ought to win.
The series gets under way this Thursday with the first test at Lord’s.
