England, England, England! What on earth happened? Getting thumped by ten wickets in Leeds is not quite what was discussed in the dressing room at the start of the 2nd Test last Friday.
Where did the selection of Darren Pattinson come in? If England wanted a specialist swing bowler for the game rather than a pace bowler, ruling out Chris Tremlett who has been the 12th man for the past few Tests is understandable, but why then did the selectors decide against Matthew Hoggard? A former England player on his home ground with something to prove, will surely do everything he can to produce that massive performance that puts him in the team for the rest of the series. Does he not tick all the boxes? I guess not unluckily for him.
Can one player upset a team so much? Usually I’d say no, but on this occasion it may have. In the past few years, the players that get into the England Test team have already been talked about for many months beforehand and are on the periphery of the England set up before they get their chance, usually in the ODI side before getting promotion to Test team should they be good enough. This has several advantages as a player wishing to make the England Test team, can do the business in County cricket and catch the eye of the selectors, who may give them a try in the ODI side, before they push for the Test team. It is a very logical and understandable process, to get straight in to the Test team from County cricket you would need to be an exceptional player. So to pick someone on a “horses for courses” basis who is not in and around the England setup, like Pattinson, dents the confidence of all those players in and around the England set up because it gives an element of uncertainty.
Prior to the Pattinson selection, players in the team in the squad could identify the other players that are competing for their spot. The batsmen in the team know they have guys like Shah, Bopara, Key, etc pushing to get in. Known quantities. Similarly the swing bowlers like Jimmy Anderson and Ryan Sidebottom know their competitors. Hoggard, Jones, Onions are pushing for their places. Again known quantities. But the selection of Pattinson blows a hole in the certainty of knowing your enemy, how do you perform if someone can come randomly out of left field and take your place? Or indeed your place in the theoretical pecking order.
This is not to blame Pattinson himself as he tried manfully and did not completely disgrace himself. It was a measure of having a man he did not know about thrust upon him, that Michael Vaughan sent him into the deep field after the 3 overs that made up his first spell. The selectors have took a risky punt for only average results.
So where do England go from here? Their first innings batting in that game was irresponsible and though on paper England have the batsmen to match any team in the world, they rarely all perform to a necessary standard. To me though Tim Ambrose looks too high up the order at no.6, his keeping has been excellent and the criticism of his rival Matt Prior was that he dropped too many catches, though he is thought to be the better batsman. So is it better to score 30 and not drop any catches or score 50 and drop two catches? I would vote for the former so I would keep Ambrose in the team.
My team for the 3rd Test at Edgbaston would line up like this:
- Strauss
- Cook
- Vaughan
- Pietersen
- Bell
- Ambrose
- Flintoff
- Broad
- Sidebottom
- Anderson/Jones
- Panesar
To me this is a decent England batting side, but lacks a bit of pace in the bowling department, so should the pitch in Birmingham be deemed to have a bit of pace in it, I maybe tempted to pick Jones over Anderson, but it would be a seriously close call between them.
