Unsurprisingly, the fifteen names chosen by England today for the forthcoming World Cup differ from those we picked in our World Cup XV earlier in the week.
We can understand leaving out Chris Tremlett on a horses for courses basis given that on the pitches of the sub-continent he would be unable to generate the bounce that made him such a dangerous proposition during the Ashes. Moreover, with Tremlett’s chequered history of injuries, perhaps it is best that he be wrapped in cotton wool ahead of the summer tests against Sri Lanka and India.
England will regret only picking one specialist keeper if Matt Prior falls victim to injury or Delhi Belly during the tournament. That said, we applaud the selection of Prior ahead of Stephen Davies, who hasn’t convinced us either, but we would have taken the Surrey gloveman or Craig Kieswetter ahead of Jonathan Trott for insurance purposes.
The omission of Davies and selection of Prior also makes the selectors look a bit foolish for not including the latter in the squad for the current seven (yawn) match series with Australia. The selectors hadn’t put a foot wrong this winter, but they erred on this occasion.
That said, both of these decisions were borderline and don’t cause us too many grumbles. However, the selection of Luke Wright and James Tredwell do.
Wright may look uncannily like Shane Watson, but it is Steve Smith that he most closely resembles as a player. Neither are good enough with bat or ball for international cricket, and surely Ravi Bopara would have been a better choice. Bopara could even have opened with Andrew Strauss, leaving Prior to fulfill the role down the order, which he is probably best suited to.
Like Wright, Tredwell is out of his depth in international cricket and whilst we never expected the selectors to go with our choice of Samit Patel, surely there are better options than Tredwell. Adil Rashid for one comes to mind.
Will this squad win the World Cup? Probably not. But England fans should expect their team to put in its best performance at the World Cup since 1992 when they were beaten in the final by Pakistan. We tip them to make the semi-finals at least.
Where next?
Watch Luke Wright breaking his cricket bat
Adil Rashid should go to the World Cup
Luke Wright is the shit Shane Watson
What Cricket can learn from Football in staging a World Cup
Follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep
England has a chance to wining the 2011 world cup. But India playing in their country. Anyway I think India, England or South Africa will win the world cup. Coz these three teams have good balance side and past two years performance are high. Let we see???
Posted by: Theashes201011.blogspot.com | Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 00:19
England win the Ashes cup and this is good for the England team.All player are mentally and physical fit and all are in good form.
Posted by: wholesale flea market items | Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 06:32
Prior are in the good form.England team are in the good form.England are possible to win the world cup 2011 in India.Prior ,Trot are in the good form and Andersen and Siddel also good power in bowling.
Posted by: gulen charter schools | Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 07:39