Posts tagged with ‘Owais Shah’

The selection of Luke Wright and Liam Plunkett for England’s tour of South Africa this winter will surprise many. The lack of reserve batsmen suggests that England will continue with Prior at six and five bowlers. Steven Davies is the reserve wicketkeeper, and Adil Rashid will understudy Graeme Swann.

John Bracewell, the Gloucestershire coach and one-day guru, has made an interesting point regarding England’s ODI batting woes. He suggests that Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah are playing for their own places rather than the team. Consider this in the light of selection policy, however, and it is the selectors who are at fault for fostering this environment.

During the course of England’s Test matches, reference is often made to their batsmen’s habit of making starts but failing to convert them into centuries. Generally, blame is placed upon the proliferation of limited overs cricket. Today, England again lost an ODI against Australia, and again a number of their batsmen established themselves, only to lose their wickets. The same trait was their downfall in the 1st ODI on Friday.

Is this a regular feature of their limited overs batting, and what are the reasons behind it?

This weeks Ashes reporting consists mostly of messages, reminders and nudges. By now, the selectors know at least ten of the side which will take the field at Cardiff. The Daily Telegraph, for whom tales of Andrew Flintoff’s evening exploits are just so 2007, assume that each and every decent county performance will have Geoff Miller re-writing the team-sheet.

To be honest, this was probably as far as they were expected to get. That they managed to bounce back from the humiliation against Holland was creditable, and the victory over India was a feather in their cap.

Andrew Strauss in a recent interview told us that he was certain of nine of the places for the Ashes XI this summer.