Here’s England’s top 25 after their Dutch disaster, the
start of the county season and the return of Peter Moores:-
On the bubble – so many potential name but the ones just
missing out are Monty Panesar (he’s been the best spinner in the country so far
this year), Scott Borthwick (He bowls loosely, but bats and fields better than
the other proper spinners), Luke Wright (Not such a t20 specialist anymore
after a horror tour of the West Indies), Craig Kieswetter (sneaking back up the
list), Harry Gurney (Just your average county seamer were it not for being a
left-armer, but England need a left armer).
25 (RE) – James Tredwell
There are lies, damn lies, and James Tredwell’s bowling
average for the West Indies tour and the World t20. Tredwell, whilst taking few
wickets, bowled very tidily. Had this been a young man of 24, everyone would
have been saying how promising he looked. Unfortunately for Tredwell, he is an
older man who perhaps doesn’t look the part, and so his chance may have passed
him by for further Test caps. The main priority must be to keep his spot in the
white ball sides, and get his Kent spot back.
24 (21) – James Taylor
All those runs during the last two county seasons, and when
his chance is really here, he can’t get that big score. He continues to operate
on the periphery of the England set-up, and most hold some kind of record for
England Lions appearances. He has to hope some of the players ahead of him cool
off, or for some kind of injury. Will Peter Moores prefer him a bit more than Andy
Flower ever did?
23 (17) – Jonny Bairstow
Bairstow, injured with a broken finger, falls through no
particular fault of his own, but the circumstances around him. Jos Buttler did
himself no great favours but no great harm during the World t20, Matt Prior has
made runs, and seen his former coach re-appointed to the England set up. It may
be a season for Bairstow to concentrate on his Yorkshire form with both bat and
gloves – a plan that should have happened last summer.
22 (NE) – Steven Davies
After a period of extended struggle after the death of his
teammate Tom Maynard, Davies has looked very sharp so far this summer. Davies
never really got a fair crack of the whip first time round, and of the four
wicketkeepers on this list, he is undoubtedly the best. The appointment of
Peter Moores, with his relationship with Prior, was a hammer blow to his
chances of making his Test debut this summer.
21 (18) – Alex Hales
Injury prevented him from making his ODI debut, an
opportunity that Michael Lumb took with both hands (and subsequently hasn’t
been rewarded for), but for one glorious night in Bangladesh, Hales took the
best t20 bowling side in the world apart, underlining his talent. England have
to be taking his claims for an ODI spot seriously, and the loan move to
Worcestershire completed today enhances his chance no end. A big summer of
cricket awaits Hales and this is a great chance to progress his career.
20 (NE) – Simon Kerrigan
A horror, horror debut at the end of last summer masked the
fact that Kerrigan has been the most consistent English spinner in county
cricket over the past two years. Had it not been for that game, there would be
no doubt that Kerrigan would be making his Test debut in the first game against
Sri Lanka. As it is, Kerrigan still has a strong chance due to being both the
best available spinner, and a close working relationship with Peter Moores at
Lancashire. The worrying thing for Kerrigan is given the amount of ECB news
that has been rumoured in public (KP’s sacking, Moores appointment) then proved
true, there are a lot of Moeen Ali as the spinner stories around.
19 (16) – Moeen Ali
According to the media, this man is England’s next first
choice Test spinner. For those who didn’t know Ali before (casual cricket fans,
TMS and Sky pundits), he is an exceptionally attractive batter to watch who
used to play a shot too many far too often. So whilst the pundits were cooing
and dribbling over Ali’s driving and pulling, those who had seen him before saw
him falling back into old habits.
However, its Ali’s bowling that seems to have caught the
eyes of the England’s selectors, with his ability to bowl the doosra
particularly impressive. The theory seems to be if the selectors believe that
none of the spinners are good enough, then they should pick Ali as a batting
all-rounder. I would view this as misguided, because if Ben Stokes plays as he
should, England suddenly have batting at eight but only three genuine
international bowlers. The selection has to be either three seamers, one
spinner and Stokes, or four seamers and Ali. There is only one winner there and
it is the ginger lad from Durham.
18 (24) – Nick Compton
A change of both head coach and batting coach greatly
benefits Compton, whose poor relationship with Graham Gooch was the beginning
of his removal from the side (the story goes that Compton requested after the
New Zealand tour that he be allowed to choose his own batting coach). The
problem for Compton since then has been the continued impressiveness of Sam
Robson. However, there is a potential vacancy at three if England choose to bat
Bell at four and Root at five, but then Gary Ballance is demanding a spot with
his form. Compton probably won’t start the first Test of the summer, but I have
a sneaking suspicion he will play in the last.
17 (13) – Tim Bresnan
For a start Bresnan is injured again, and what with the army
of young seamers being given an opportunity in county cricket, he seems set to
fall down the pecking order. His bowling was simply dismal at the World t20 (he
did bowl well in the West Indies), approximately about as threatening as a
kitten pawing balloons towards a batter with a tennis racket. However, his
batting was fairly impressive, scoring quick handy runs. In a hypothetical
world, if he was fit for the First Test and Stokes wasn’t, would England play
Bresnan at eight and as the fourth seamer with Ali as the spinner? I think they
would and that’s why Bresnan still has an international career.
16 (23) – Graham Onions
Another player who will clearly benefit from a change of
coach, although he would have loved to have seen the back of David Saker too
(wouldn’t we all). Onions still takes bundles of wickets for Durham, and whilst
it is a handy place to be a seam bowler, his figures are generally that extra
cut above. He could have done a with a better start to the season but if
England either favour four seamers in the First Test or don’t fancy Chris
Jordan then Onions will add to his Test caps.
15 (15) – Chris Woakes
With Stokes injured, Chris Woakes will look back at this
period in his life and maybe wonder what if he had scored a ton in the early
county games of 2014. His maligned bowling is very effective in this weather,
and he is the obvious replacement for Stokes. His batting though so far this
year doesn’t scream Test number six or seven, and you imagine he’s behind Ali
in the ODI side, which given the amount of white ball cricket before the 1st
Test, will hurt him. Still, he has a good all round game for all three formats,
and on paper he looks superb.
14 (11) – Chris Jordan
The wickets that didn’t come in Australia came in the West
Indies, and he also exhibited his powerful stroke play that means Sussex
believe he can become a genuine all-rounder. Victim if some rather unnecessary
snides from journalists that he would rather play for the West Indies, Jordan
is in pole position to be the third seamer in the first Test against Sri Lanka,
given that his main competitors (Onions and Finn) are not in the white ball
squads. Gave Jonathan Trott a thorough roughing up in the county game, and
looks like a man on an upward curve into Test cricket, but with every wicket
Steven Finn takes he is one step closer to having to wait.
13 (14) – Sam Robson
Robson continues to look very, very solid when he plays for
Middlesex, and there seems to be a growing sense that he is the right man to
open with Cook. Robson’s main worry has to be that someone on the outside goes
absolutely ballistic during the ODI’s, and England push Root back up to open
without giving Robson a chance. Other than that, he should play against Sri
Lanka, so get ready for the “he isn’t really English comments”
12 (7) – Eoin Morgan
Morgan was unfit during the West Indies tour, looked unfit
at the World t20, and has since failed to make enough headway in county cricket
to get himself into the Test side. England’s Test team is desperately crying
out for someone with his natural tempo, but Gary Ballance has really put the
hammer down, and Morgan needs a huge ODI series to overtake him.
11 (20) – Ravi Bopara
Bopara was actually very, very good in both the West Indies
and at the World t20. His bowling continues to be completely undervalued by
England – he clearly needed more overs whilst Bresnan and Dernbach needed less,
whilst his batting is a nice fit for six in both white ball sides. The
Netherlands game kind of summed of Bopara’s career unfortunately. Having
performed a role where he allowed others to win games for England, when England
really needed Bopara to step to the plate to win them a game, he was unable to
do so. It’s that kind inability which means Bopara has 13 Test caps and Paul
Collingwood has 68. That said he is now an early pick in both white ball sides.
10 (9) – Jos Buttler
Buttler has neither furthered his case nor harmed it since I
last wrote about him, but the combination of Prior’s form and Moores’
appointment does not help him one bit. The case for a Test debut can only be
made if he absolutely tears up the white ball series and Prior continues to
remain unfit, but it’s looking like another summer of white cricket for England
and red ball cricket for his county.
9 (12) – Gary Ballance
So much of selection is about either scoring runs or taking
wickets at exactly the right time, and Ballance has found the right time to be
the top run scorer in the country. Three hundreds in six innings shows an
appetite for big runs, and were it not for England’s obsession with fitness,
he’d be a certain starter against Sri Lanka. Has got his ODI recall, and has
the chance to make his case beyond dissent.
8 (10) – Steven Finn
Finn has been freed from David Saker, and is top of the
wicket taking charts already for Middlesex. His economy rate remains high, but
this is a bowler who can get any player in the world out, a bowler with a Test
record better than Morne Morkel’s at a far younger age, and England have to
have the confidence to pick him. Unfortunately, we are not Australia or South
Africa, we sadly seem to demand accuracy from our seamers before wicket taking,
and Finn, despite being the best prospect in county cricket, may continue to be
out of the side. At his current wicket taking rate, it won’t be long before he
forces himself back in.
7 (3) – Ben Stokes
Whilst punching a locker and breaking his wrist was a
childish and stupid thing to do, if people didn’t already know that Stokes is a
partially volatile character, then they weren’t in a position to make an
informed judgement on him. Given his form in the West Indies, missing the World
t20 might have been a blessing, giving him time off after a winter when his
career has changed beyond all recognition. He needs careful management, and
with Peter Moores having previously lost the job as England coach due to his
inability to manage his best players (not just a certain South African born
batter), the relationship between Stokes and Moores might be the most
fascinating internal aspect of England’s cricket this summer.
6 (6) – Joe Root
Having missed the World t20 after breaking his thumb during
a simply outstanding maiden ODI hundred, Root now finds himself in a bit of a
funny position. No-one knows whether he is definitely in the Test team, or playing
for his place, and it’s hard to work out whether he should just relax and find
some form, or whether he needs a big score early in the season. One thing that
certainly needs to be sorted is where he is going to bat in the Test side,
because he can’t keep being moved around the order.
5 (8) – Matt Prior
The feeling was always that if Prior scored runs for Sussex
at the start of the season, then he would return to the England Test squad, and
with his mentor Moores as coach, it would be a huge shock if he wasn’t selected
for the Sri Lanka series. Given the influence he seems to hold over Cook on the
field, if he plays then he is essentially the de facto vice-captain, and at
times frankly the de facto captain.
4 (2) – Stuart Broad
The rumour during the tour of the West Indies was that had
the World t20 not been part of that tour, then both Morgan and Broad would have
been far too unfit to play. With Broad, that was palpably clear, as he
struggled through the tournament before having a knee operation afterwards. He
retains a huge amount of credit from the away Ashes series (one expects that
Broad will be given a pass by the Barmy Army when it comes to dissatisfaction
with the events of the winter). The bowling attack should now be built around
Broad, but he is likely to lose the t20 captaincy to Eoin Morgan after two
group stage failures at World t20’s, although his captaincy has shown promise.
3 (5) – James Anderson
It could be a statement on the quality of the pitches in the
county championship, or the quality of the players, but Anderson has been
utterly unplayable since his return from Australia. Often looked off the pace
in Australia, which could be explained by his broken rib that he kept from the
medics (undoubtedly brave, but it would have been interesting to see the ECB
reaction if, say, Kevin Pietersen had done the same). Anderson is a man with a
point to prove this summer, as since the summer of 2012 he has produced his
best against the best very sparingly.
2 (4) – Ian Bell
Forget losing to the Netherlands, the moment that should
have finished Ashley Giles was when he selected Bell for the World t20 – and
that is meant as no offence to Bell, who hadn’t played a professional t20 match
since 2011. What is does show is the high regard in which Bell is now held,
with his ODI form particularly impressive given his previous problems in that
format. This will be an odd summer to mentally prepare for Bell, who having
spent a long time hidden from the limelight by Pietersen, Cook and Strauss,
enters an English summer for the first time as England’s best batter. Judging
by his performances so far for Warwickshire he is ready for that challenge.
1 (1) – Alistair Cook
Nothing has really happened to change my view that English
cricket is now irrevocably tied to Cook’s performance, given how many of the
ECB’s recent decisions have been with his best interests in mind, and he will
continue to remain at number one until that changes. Moores and Cook may well
be a good mix as coach and captain, but both have a lot of flaws to overcome,
ones that may have been overcome easier with Stephen Fleming as coach. Graham
Gooch has been cast aside, a necessary move, but one that continues to build
the unease that fingers are being pointed everywhere except at the England captain.
In terms of his actual cricket, Cook has started the season
in excellent form, second behind Ballance in the batting charts. There has
still been the odd concern about his strike rate (In one game, having passed
100, Cook scored only 15 in an hour), but he looks in generally very good form.
The real test has yet to start though, and it begins on the 9th May.
Cook’s captaincy, abysmal in Australia, will be under the microscope every time
he leads England onto the field this summer.
