As potential banana skins go, tomorrow’s 50 over warm-up match between England and the Lions is a particularly slippery one surrounded by a cricket square sized area of treacherous black ice that is invisible to the naked eye.
On the one hand you have a team mostly coming in on the back of a chastening 3-0 Test series whitewash trying to immediately adjust to the 50 over game. Either that or in the case of Ravi Bopara for example, having spent the last three weeks carrying drinks.
Whilst on the other you have a young side fresh from winning a series 3-2 against Sri Lanka A who have done nothing but play limited over cricket in Asia for the past few weeks.
When you also factor in that individuals like Jos Buttler and Jonathan Bairstow will be eager to impress coach Andy Flower in order to get the nod for the ODI series with Pakistan and others like Joe Root and Alex Hales will be striving to show that they are ready for a call-up to the first choice squad, it’s not difficult to see what is perhaps more than likely going to happen.
A couple of years ago, strong performances from Craig Kieswetter and Michael Lumb for the Lions against the senior squad propelled them into England’s T20 side for the victorious World Cup campaign in the Caribbean.
Who will be the big noise this time? We’re going to go for the safest of bets and predict that Buttler, a man who scored two centuries in the aforementioned trip to Sri Lanka and who averages 70.57 in List A games with a strike rate of 128. That’s pretty decent.
Flower and the senior squad are probably relieved that it is Pakistan and not they who are Afghanistan’s opposition in their first ODI tomorrow. Either way the senior side are likely to be up the Khyber come the end of proceedings tomorrow.
Where next?
How good are this England cricket team?
India v England ODI series: England marks out of 10
Pakistan vs England - England series marks out of 10
England's tale of woe against spin in Asia
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