England’s Tour to India

October 4, 2008 · Filed Under England Test Cricket

Its been a while since I posted - seeing as nothing of interest cricketing is happening at the moment it didn’t seem worthwhile posting! Yes, the end of the county cricket season was quite exciting (and congrats to winners Durham), but I don’t have the excitement in county cricket to start writing. The announcement of the England Test Match squad to go to India is enough though!

There are no real surprises in the squad - aside from maybe Vaughan not being there. That isn’t surprising from a form point of view (its been absolutely shocking), but just from an experience view - I could really see England taking him anyway but to be honest I think I prefer the fact that Shah is there. He played really well two years ago in India and hopefully he’ll have a chance to do the same again. If he gets into some kind of groove in test match cricket then he’ll be powerful for us next summer in the Ashes.

Ambrose has somehow managed to scramble onto the tour, but I expect it to be as no more than backup keeper. Prior will be given a good workout in India and I hope he comes through it well also. Swann deserved the chance as second spinner, and then we have our list of quickies, some of whom are going to have to miss out if we do go in with two spinners.

I’m not sure if we’ll play two spinners on each pitch, I don’t know the ins and outs of their particular grounds, but if we do, then I’m going to stick my neck on the line and go with a line up that looks like this:
Cook
Strauss
Shah
KP
Bell
Flintoff
Prior
Swann
Harmison
Anderson
Panesar

Which would leave Sidebottom, Collingwood, Broad and Ambrose on the sidelines - all of whom might think they should be playing. I don’t actually see us playing the XI I’ve suggested… but anyway! We might instead utilise Captain KP as the second spinner, which would allow us to play probably an extra seamer, but who knows. The test matches aren’t even until December so this is ridiculously premature and I’ll change my mind before then, I was just excited to have something to talk about for a change!