Ashes Party Selection Time

With the news that the Ashes party announcement has been brought forward to this Thursday slowly filtering through; we here at the Compulsive Hooker thought we would select our squad for the tour. In past years the squad announcement would have been a time of much speculation and worry for everyone involved – including the fans. With the advent of central contracts and the national side increasingly resembling an elite club there is actually not much mystery about who Andy Flower and company will pick (and therefore perhaps little point in this article!). In actual fact you would probably get very short odds from a bookmaker that tour party would be as follows:

Strauss, Cook, Trott, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell, Morgan, Prior, Davies, Broad, Finn, Anderson, Shahzad, Bresnan, Panesar, and Swann.

Where we believe this series is going to be won and lost will be in the bowling attacks and with this in mind we do have a couple of worries relating to the bowling selections. We have no problems with Finn, Anderson and Broad as our premier seam attack despite the old argument that, due to the Kookaburra ball and conditions in Australia being unsuited to English type bowlers (i.e. little swing available), England will struggle to take the required 20 wickets to win a game. The interesting thing when you look at this argument is that most people are of the opinion that Australia will pick Ben Hilfenhaus – a man whose primary weapon is swing! Couple this with the fact that Broad and Finn are typically un-English bowlers (i.e. hit the deck and move it off the pitch at pace) and suddenly the balance of the attack is almost identical to Australia’s.

It is when we consider the two reserve seam bowlers that we start having a few worries. Shahzad and Bresnan will likely be the selection by Flower and company, yet, as we have said before, the prospect of Bresnan running in at the WACA (or indeed any Australian wicket) gives us nightmares.

Bresnan is your quintessential hard working English swing bowler, a working mans Matthew Hoggard if you like, and toiler though he is, we have a horrible feeling that he will be destroyed in conditions where he will get no assistance. There are several seam bowlers who have had good seasons including Woakes from Warickshire, Harris from Glamorgan and England discard Tremlett, now of Surrey. With his height and bounce we would be inclined to have a look at the latter although we feel it is highly unlikely that the selectors would go down this route. Shahzad would definitely get the other slot as he showed enough fire and venom in his appearances this Summer to suggest he could potentially develop into a latter day Simon Jones.

Graeme Swann is of course an automatic pick for the front line spinners berth and is the one selection in which we are comfortably ahead of Australia. Hauritz, honest operator though he is, is no match for a bowler who is clearly the best spinner in the world at the moment. The reserve spot is again a tricky one and with Panesar having a 50 wicket season in Division 2 for Sussex, he would seem to be the obvious selection. Our pick however would be for Shahzad’s Yorkshire colleague, Adil Rashid, who has had an even better one finishing in the top 5 of the Division 1 wicket takers. There is always a worry that by exposing a young leg spinner to the might of the Australians it might set their development back, but in our view, he will definitely play at some stage and therefore why not now when his confidence is high after an excellent domestic season.

The seven batting spots pick themselves with Bell taking Morgan’s place in the top six although quite honestly we would almost be tempted to pick Morgan ahead of Collingwood at the moment. England have had a difficult time of it this Summer against an excellent swing attack, but we feel that with the Australian attack holding fewer demons than the Pakistani, they should have no problems scoring enough runs this Winter.

It is crucially important that KP returns to his best form as he is the one genuine star in the line up and despite his recent poor form we have few worries on this front. KP is a player who relishes a contest and raises his game when the stakes are highest and with that in mind we believe he will score plenty of runs.

If injuries occur the Lions will be in Australia and with the youthful riches of Adam Lyth of Yorkshire and James Hildreth of Somerset to name but two, as well as the better known quantities of Hampshire colleagues Adams and Carberry for example likely to be involved, we have confidence that the quality back up will be there if necessary.

Therefore the Compulsive Hooker’s squad would be:

Andrew Strauss, Alistair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan, Matthew Prior, Steven Davies, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn, Jimmy Anderson, Ajmal Shahzad, Chris Tremlett, Adil Rashid and Graeme Swann.