Saturday review – 7 Jan

After a hiatus for Christmas and New Year’s I am resuming my Saturday Review this week. The week was dominated by the New Year’s Tests, though in each case the hosts won comfortably on the fourth day. England began their tour of the UAE and bowled the ICC Combined Associate and Affiliate XI for 281, though it could have been better after the ICC XI were 90-6 just before lunch. Broad was the main destroyer, taking four wickets including one each in his first three overs. Anderson, Finn and Swann all picked up two. My favourite articles this week were:

Ian Bell: Lord Megachief of Gold 2011 – King Cricket

Bradman versus Warne – Ashley Mallett, Cricinfo

India have an athleticism problem – Harsha Bhogle, Cricinfo

Everyone’s invited to cricket’s giant virtual bar – Jarrod Kimber, Cricinfo

I’ve stopped writing summaries of them because I’m rubbish at it and don’t enjoy it. But I highly encourage you to read all of those, especially Jarrod Kimber’s as it describes everything I love about Twitter. It’s especially useful in America as there isn’t anyone local with whom I can talk about cricket.

South Africa win by ten wickets

South Africa’s victory gives them a 2-1 victory in the series and their first win in a series at home since they played the West Indies a few years ago. It’s an important victory for the fortunes of the team, and they thoroughly deserve it having dominated most of this series. The fact that they did win will probably come as some relief after they dominated most of a four match series against England two years ago and could only draw it 1-1. To Sri Lanka’s credit, they made them work for it on the last day. I said yesterday that Sri Lanka would need Samaraweera and Mathews to have a good partnership and for one of them or Chandimal to shepherd the tail and that is exactly what they did. Samaraweera and Mathews batted through the entire morning session and put on the highest ever fifth wicket partnership for Sri Lanka against South Africa. During this time I counted four edges falling short of the slips or ‘keeper, however, so South Africa were a bit culpable. The breakthrough finally came when a ball kept horribly low to Mathews and had him trapped LBW. After Chandimal departed not long after Samaraweera did shepherd the tail and put on over fifty with Perera. Sri Lanka grabbed a lead of one when Welegedara hit Kallis back over his head for six, the ball before Kallis uprooted leg stump, meaning South Africa would have to chase two runs to win. This prompted the sort of farce that can only be seen in cricket, as the timing of the dismissal meant that tea had to be taken before South Africa could start their chase. The first ball after the twenty minute break was a no-ball and Petersen hit what is listed on Cricinfo as a single to long on, though live I thought it had gone to the rope. (Though I had been awake for 25 straight hours by that point, so I wouldn’t consider that reliable.) The no-ball also meant that it was the first time a team had chased a total off zero deliveries.

It was a fairly frustrating day for the South Africans. I think they would have thought like I and most people did that they would have the match wrapped up by the second drinks interval. To their credit, when the wickets weren’t coming they never really dropped their heads; they kept plugging away and eventually did make the breakthrough. I couldn’t see them losing the match, or even failing to win since there was an entire day to spare, but given their past failings it would have been easy to start thinking ‘here we go again’. They didn’t though, and they deserve credit for that. Their victory will be a huge boost to their morale, and with their next series being in New Zealand they should go into England on a high. (Though there is a lot of time between the New Zealand tour and the England tour.) Despite their now a bit predictable slip up in Durban, they had a very good series. Sri Lanka were never in the first or third Tests and never looked like even saving them.

For Sri Lanka, they probably won’t be too disappointed with the result of the series. The gave away an opportunity for a very good result when they chose to bowl, but the fact that they won even one match is more than they have done before. When one considers the fact that they were without a proper bowling attack the result looks even better. The pragmatists will immediately recognise, however, that ‘better than expected’ does not equal good and they still have a log way to go. Their next series is at home against England and whilst we are yet to see how England do in the UAE, one expects that Sri Lanka will be very much second favourites.

Australia win by an innings and 68 runs

It was actually a lot closer than I thought it would be. India batted very well in the morning session, only losing Gambhir, and scoring at a frenetic rate. There always seems to be the looming spectre of a collapse about India’s batting, however, regardless of how assured any two of them may look during a partnership. Today the collapse was started in possibly the most ridiculous manner possible, when Michael Clarke brought himself onto bowl in an effort to get through the last few overs before the new ball quickly and ended up getting Sachin Tendulkar caught at slip via a dreadful drop by Haddin. It was just about as farcical as one could imagine, but it meant that a new batsman, Kohli, would come in to face the new ball. Just before Tendulkar was out the score was 271-3. Seven overs later the score was 286-7. The surprising bit for me was that India’s tail did not carry on in the same manner, to which I have become accustomed. The tail wagged quite a lot, with Ashwin scoring 62 and Zaheer Khan a rapid-fire 35. There was a point at which another sub-300 score looked quite likely, but the lower order did manage to save some face for India.

The result leaves the question of where the two sides, especially India, go from here. The series is effectively over, so India could take this opportunity to experiment with some younger batsmen. Sehwag and Laxman in particular look like they could use some time to reassess their technique, so leaving them out on one of the quicker tracks in the world, Perth, may not be a bad strategy. It is very important that they start to blood some youngsters in unfamiliar conditions. Raina in England and Kohli in Oz have been badly exposed in conditions more suited to bowlers than the ones to which they are used and they and Rohit Sharma will need to find ways to overcome that. Better for India to give them a go when there is little to lose than at the beginning of an important tour as they did in England and Australia. I don’t think it will happen, given the selectors previous tactic of burying their heads in the sand, but it would be worth a go. It could hardly be any worse, certainly.

Australia are also faced with some selection headaches. In the short term Harris is back fit and whilst he does not necessarily demand inclusion, he has been one of their best bowlers recently. Last winter Australia played an all pace attack at Perth to very good effect and I don’t think it would be a bad idea to do so again. I think Lyon is a good bowler with a lot of potential, but he hasn’t done a lot in the first two matches and the WACA will probably not suit him. In the long term they have the problem that only the old guard scored runs in this match. Warner, Cowan and Marsh all failed as they did in the second innings at the MCG. Australia cannot rely on Ponting and Hussey for very much longer, but now they are in a position where they cannot easily drop them either. If the selectors are lucky Ponting will choose the end of the Australian summer as an opportunity to retire on a high, but this does not look likely as two months ago he suggested that he might still play in the 2013 Ashes. Meanwhile Hussey seems to be making scores at the exact right time to keep his place in the side. I think that as well as Ponting and Hussey have done in this Test the selectors must still show them the door quite soon. England dropped Steve Harmison after the 2009 Ashes despite the fact that he had a good Test because Strauss and Flower recognised that he did not fit into the long term plans for the side. Australia must do the same. Fortunately for them they will at least have some time in which to consider the matter.

I might have to go out this weekend

I can’t see either of the New Year’s Tests going into a fifth day. Michael Clarke finally declared on 659-4 at the SCG after Michael Hussey raised his 150 (and Clarke was on 329) and at Newlands Sri Lanka collapsed to 239 all out and were unsurprisingly asked to follow on. They reached stumps on 138-4, still trailing by over 200. Rather surprisingly, this does mean that India are likely to last longer than Sri Lanka, though it’s close.

India actually played better on day three than day two, though they still didn’t get any wickets (for an entire session and a half) they did spend the morning trying to contain Australia and kept the run rate down below three an over. They still bowled Sehwag quite a bit, however, despite the fact that he was really only there to make up the numbers. He was at least tight enough to avoid bringing up his ton, although his figures of 23-1-0-75 mean that he conceded more runs today than he scored at the MCG (and more than he scored in both Tests against England combined). He did arguably bowl better than Yadav though, who took 0-123 in 24 overs. After lunch, India went back to looking as poor as they had the day before, however, and just waited for the declaration. India made it to stumps on 114-2, which is a decent platform given that they were bowled out for 191 the first time. Whilst Sehwag went cheaply, of course, Gambhir managed to stay not out overnight and has scored 68 so far. It’s a pretty good return for him at an important time. Dravid, unfortunately for India, was bowled through the gate again, this time for 29. Without Dravid it will take a very good batting display from the rest of the order to see them through to stumps, especially as Australia will likely be able to take the extra half hour.

Sri Lanka’s horror show of a Test match is much less likely to make it to a fifth day. After getting themselves into a pretty good position overnight, 149-2, they capitulated this morning and lost Sangakkara to the third ball of the day before the rest fell in a heap. Only the ‘keeper Chandimal offered any resistance and he was last out for 31 in a total of 239 all out. Following on, Sri Lanka’s hopes of getting off to a good start were dealt a blow by Dilshan going for just five, but they recovered well from that and were only one down at tea. Jacques Kallis, who had had a quiet test up to that point, struck in the final session, getting Thirimanne to edge behind and taking good catches off Tahir and Morkel. Sri Lanka now need Mathews and Samaraweeera, who scored 12 runs between them in the first innings, to hold out for at least a session tomorrow and for one of them of Chandimal to shepherd the tail if they are to stand any chance of even making South Africa bat again. I’d start making plans for Friday night and Saturday afternoon now.

599-2

Yesterday was not kind to subcontinental teams. India and Sri Lanka bowled almost five sessions between them and in that time took only two wickets whilst conceding 599 runs. I can’t say much about Sri Lanka’s bowling; I didn’t see a lot of it as I have to sleep at some point and by the time I got up South Africa had declared. India’s bowling, however, was abject. They were still very much in the game at the start of the day and a couple of early wickets could have touched off another Australian collapse. They never really tried, however. At no point in the morning did they look like taking a wicket, or even like they wanted to. Dhoni was neither attacking nor trying to dry up the scoring and by the time Australia overhauled India’s first innings total it looked for all the world like declaration bowling.

I was harsh on India after the MCG Test, but they were so much worse yesterday. In Melbourne their batting let them down, but their bowling was at least average. Today it was far, far from average. They were completely flat and uninspired from the moment they got on the pitch yesterday morning. It was probably the worst bowling display I’ve seen since Australia conceded 517-1 last winter, and they at least have the excuse that England’s batsmen are very good. India picked up one wicket, that of Ponting, with the second new ball and did at least make Clarke look uncomfortable for a few overs. It wasn’t nearly enough, however, and Sehwag came on to bowl (in tandem with Ashwin) with the new ball just 18 overs old. It was an utterly pathetic effort all around and they are effectively out of the series now.

Sehwag is not an opener

In my 2011 XI post I remarked upon the fact that there were a dearth of good openers last year. Not only did no full time occupant of the position came close to matching the record of Alastair Cook, but none of them even averaged over fifty. I put it down at first to a statistical anomaly, but watching India ‘bat’ at the SCG I realised that many teams no longer have traditional openers in the mould of Strauss and Cook. Most teams now have at least one opener who tries to get his team off to an ODI-style flier. Sehwag for India is the most notable, but New Zealand have McCullum, Sri Lanka have Dilshan, Bangladesh have Iqbal, Pakistan have Hafeez, South Africa have Smith and Australia have Warner (now) and Watson (prior to his injury). The only team besides England who do not follow this trend are the West Indies, and in their case it is only because of the ongoing feud between the WICB and Chris Gayle.

I think this is central to the spate of collapses and low scores we have seen in Test matches this year. Having an ‘explosive’ batsman at the top of the order is not necessary at Test level and more and more it appears to be a hindrance. New ball bowlers have started to appreciably swing the ball again and especially last year we saw an increase in the number of wickets that helped the bowlers early on. The batsmen trying to hit out and score 100 before lunch are having their technique exposed by the moving ball and are departing early on in the innings. This is borne out by the statistics; through the noughties the average opening partnership was just a shade over 40. In 2011 it was 31.30. Having the number three come in to face a still new ball is obviously far less than ideal, and this is how top order collapses start. We’ve seen it several times this year, and whilst it isn’t all down to the failures of opening batsmen I think that is one of the main culprits. The job of an opening batsmen is to accumulate runs whilst playing the shine off the ball and wearing down the opposition’s best bowlers, not to propel the team to 150-1 at lunch. The teams like England that remember this fact are the ones that will be successful.

SCG, day one

Writing this, I was a bit tempted to reuse one of my posts from the Melbourne Test match. Once again India’s batsmen self-destructed on a pitch that was only a little bit helpful to the bowlers. None of the top order got a really unplayable ball, though Gambhir and Kohli did at least get testing ones. Even then, however, they were guilty of playing too far forward at balls that would have carried over the stumps. Dravid is now starting to look seriously weak against balls pitched up at middle stump, he was bowled twice in the last Test and today he could only get the inside edge of his bat onto one and was caught bat-pad. All the rest of the top order batsman played without footwork at balls wide of off stump and got themselves out. They ought to have learnt better in England, but having failed to do so it is not surprising (although still disappointing) that they did not learn anything at the MCG either. These are supposed to be some of the best batsmen in the world, but a county batsman would have been embarrassed by this effort. Dhoni finished 57 not out, seemingly in an effort to show the rest of them how to play and single-handedly validate the decision to bat first. I had said before the match that I thought it was a bowl first pitch, and I think I was right about that, but once again India are under pressure and have only themselves to blame.

For their part Australia did well enough, but no more. In the first half of the day especially, their line was a bit loose and Ponting dropped an absolute sitter from Sehwag. Whilst their quicks have been very good this winter, they’ll be flattered by their figures today; I expect they’d have conceded at least 350 against a good batting lineup. Their top order also failed; Warner, Cowan and Marsh made just 24 runs between them. There was at least an element of good bowling to those dismissals, however, as Zaheer Khan made the ball move both ways. Marsh should not have played at the ball he did (and looked a bit out of his depth in the one ball he faced) but appeared to be trying to cover his stumps for the inswinger, which is not ridiculous. Unfortunately for him he read the delivery wrong and edged an outswinger to slip. Ponting and Clarke then put on a good partnership, although Clarke tried really hard to get out to a Sehwag-esque shot whilst still in single figures. It will be especially frustrating for India, as they dragged themselves back into the match with the three early wickets before Ponting and Clarke got into stride and took it away again. They can’t really rue any poor fortune though. Their bowlers display the same lack of application and general unwillingness to play a full Test innings as their batsmen. Dravid and Dhoni frequently look like the only players who actually want to win the Test match. For India to succeed they must either convince Sehwag, Laxman et al to play to their fullest extent or drop them. It’s a decision they ought to make as soon as this series ends.

Australia finished on 116-3, trailing by 75 runs and are well on top. If they can push on even just to 300 tomorrow India will probably be out of both the match and the series.

The tour starts today!

England fly out to the UAE today for their first Test series there. This day excites me every time England go on tour, but particularly so this time as it will be the first proper look at the UAE conditions. It’s the first series, even including the Ashes, where I’ve been very keen on watching a warmup match. Whilst the conditions are described as ‘subcontinental’ the UAE is not strictly on the subcontinent, but rather the Arab peninsula so I am very eager to see how the conditions actually look. (And not only for the Tests, but for Lancashire’s opener in March.) The first warmup is against an interesting XI as well, so it’s worth marking the calendars for the 7th as well as the 17th.

As far as the actual series is concerned it looks like it should be a good one. England and Pakistan were the two best teams in 2011, though England’s wins came mostly against stronger opposition. Pakistan have shown a willingness to bat slowly and reasonably, however, which I think will be an important skill as a lot of sides in the past year have collapsed playing rash shots and England have capitalised on this. Whilst I don’t see our bowlers panicking or getting desperate for wickets, if Pakistan keep their heads when the runs dry up they could still make life hard for the England bowlers. Unfortunately that could make for a very dull contest, but Pakistan have a lively seam attack as well so if the groundsmen put a bit in the wicket it will probably be to everyone’s benefit. Strauss has hinted that England will play three seamers, but I would not be surprised to see some rotation between Tests. England have a good squad of bowlers, and resting some of them might not be a bad idea.

I won’t guess at a series result this early, but despite a lot of optimism from Pakistan I think England have the edge. England’s success last year was against what had been considered to be the best team in the world and to say that it was emphatic would be an understatement. Whilst England have not yet gone to the subcontinent, the bowlers proved last winter that they can take wickets even when not getting massive amounts of swing. There have also been suggestions that Swann has been figured out after he had a quiet 2011, but I don’t think that’s the case. During last winter’s Ashes and last summer’s home series he only got two wickets that took turn and he picked up five wicket hauls in both of them. In the other matches he didn’t get much of a chance as the seamers were picking up all the wickets before he got the ball. Saeed Ajmal was the better spinner last year, but it is not a given that he will win a head to head matchup with Swann. Pakistan are at ‘home’ and have been impressive this year, but England have better batsmen, better bowlers and a better wicket-keeper and, pending the tour matches, have to be favourites.

New Year’s Tests

Like on Boxing Day there are two Tests back to back this week; stumps in Sydney lead neatly into the start of play at Cape Town. Unlike on Boxing Day I’m not going to all but ignore South Africa, but the Australian match is on at a more reasonable time (for me) so I’ll still focus on them.

Australia still have a lot of questions to answer, despite their emphatic victory at the MCG. Their batsmen collapsed to 27-4 whilst trying to build a lead despite mediocre bowling and being under no pressure to score quickly. Their shot selection was poor, and not for the first time this year. Warner is a good young player, but he still has work to do on curbing his aggression. Cowan left a ball a bit too close, but he still looks like the most reliable member of the top order. Leaving balls is not something his compatriots have done nearly enough. On the bowling side, Harris is back in the squad, but not expected to play. After their strong performance at Melbourne that isn’t surprising, no bowler gave a performance that would be worthy of being dropped.

India are in a clearly worse state than Australia. Their batsmen still seem incapable of dealing with the slightest movement and worse did not even seem to realise that they could not play the same shots that they would on the subcontinent. There does not appear to be a lot they could change with regard to selection, after the performance in England there does not seem to be any point to playing Raina in place of Kohli. Their bowlers are not the problem, but they do not have the strength in depth to exploit the pace of the pitches as Australia have done. They must find a way to make their batsmen play sensibly, especially Sehwag at the top of the order. The age of the batmen make this look unlikely, however, they are fairly well established in their styles.

The pitch is expected to help the quicks as it has the previous two years. This will help Australia, and they should try to ensure that the pitches in the remaining two Tests do the same. I expect it will be another low scoring game then, and it will probably be decided by who does the best job of knuckling down. Australia will be happy with that; Dravid is the only batmsan who appears to be able to knuckle down and having been bowled twice off legal deliveries and once off a no-ball he might have a weakness that Australia can exploit. If he does fall cheaply Australia will be strong favourites, as India do not look like having anyone else who can build an innings. I’m predicting an Australian win by 50 runs.

I mostly ignored the Boxing Day Test between South Africa and Sri Lanka. The first match went the way I had predicted and the series did not look like it was going to be as close or as interesting as the one in Oz. Of course, then, it turned into a reasonably close and quite surprising match. I had underestimated South Africa’s ability to choke, especially on Boxing Day. They collapsed, again, and lost, again. It’s great news for the neutral like myself, as the series is now 1-1 going into Cape Town. South Africa still ought to win, but they never ought to have lost the previous match and I’m not sure they’ll be able to force a victory.

Prince has been dropped and Alviro Petersen will play in his stead. Petersen is an opener by trade and Prince batted at number six, so it’s not clear where he will bat at Cape Town. With Rudolph struggling a bit at the top I would expect Petersen to open and Rudolph to move down the order. Philander is also back fit, which leaves a slight conundrum for the selectors. Marchant de Lange was Philander’s replacement at Kingsmead and took seven wickets in the first innings. Morne Morkel performed better in the second innings though, and may yet keep his place. I would be tempted to give de Lange another Test in which to try to push for an extended run.

Sri Lanka shouldn’t feel like they need to do too much differently. A draw will be a good result in the series for them, and the pressure will be firmly on South Africa to win the match. Given their history when the pressure has been on Sri Lanka will feel like they have a good chance to at least draw and maybe even win the match. Their only injury concern (or at least only new injury concern) is that of Dinesh Chandimal, and he is expected to be fit to play. I’m predicting a draw, with South Africa on top but not doing enough to actually win.

2011 XI

After an all-too-few 39 matches, 2011 is over. Well not really, but the next Test is at the SCG on 3 January, so the year is over for all intents and purposes. As my final look back on the year I have compiled an XI for 2011. It’s a generalised lineup; I have given no thought to specialised conditions such as a spinning Indian wicket or a seaming English one. Doing so would also be an interesting exercise, but this is a good place to start. For the balance of the side I went with four bowlers and six batsmen. It’s not one with which I entirely agree, but England were undefeated with it this year so there we are. My XI is thus:

Alastair Cook*
Rahul Dravid
Kumar Sangakkara
Kevin Pietersen
Ian Bell
Younis Khan
Matt Prior†
Stuart Broad
Dale Steyn
Saeed Ajmal
James Anderson

12th Man: Misbah-ul-Haq

Cook is an obvious choice. He started the year by scoring 189 runs at the SCG (in one innings, obviously) and barely slacked off after that. He scored 927 runs in only eight matches this year at an average of 84, including 294 at Edgbaston to form the base of England’s 710-7 declared. I also selected him as captain. Although he does not have a lot of experience none of the players in my XI are currently captain and Cook is being groomed as Strauss’ replacement. This XI should not need a particularly strong captain, however, just look at how successful Ponting was. The selection of his opening partner was much more difficult. Few other openers stood out and none came close to matching Cook. Dravid is not a regular opener, and has said that he does not like to open, but did so with aplomb in England. He was lead run scorer this year and averaged better than 57, but in the five innings in which he opened he averaged almost eighty. Although it’s not his regular position, there are no other openers who impressed in the same way that he and Cook did, so they are my opening pair.

By selecting Dravid as an opener it opens up the number three spot and the choice of Sangakkara is an easy one. He scored over a thousand runs this year (only Dravid scored more) and has just come off a match winning century in Durban. He averaged over fifty batting in the middle order as well, and often seemed to carry his side. Ian Bell, although he has preferred batting at number three, spent a lot of the year at number five, so that is where he goes into this XI. His selection was as easy as Sangakkara’s though; he scored 950 runs at 118 apiece this year. He was the only batsman this year to average over 100 after playing in more than one match. Younis Khan was the last pretty straightforward selection. He scored 765 runs at an average of exactly 85, the second best amongst all middle order players. It was a very good performance, especially as he would have had to put a lot of politics out of his head. The last middle order place went to KP, but it was a very difficult decision between him and Misbah-ul-Haq. In the end I though KP had a better year, making a spectacular resurgence against India. Misbah scored a lot or runs, and did a brilliant job captaining the side, but KP had a better average and also provided a good explosive option after the top three who would have built a solid base. Although he was the last selection he goes in at number four as that is his usual spot.

The selection of a wicket-keeper was easy, Matt Prior has been peerless for some time now. He averaged 64.87 with the bat and 2.25 dismissals per innings. The former is far and away the highest, whilst the latter is second by 0.02 to MS Dhoni. Unfortunately Statsguru doesn’t seem to let me sort wicket-keepers by byes, so I don’t know how he ranks in that regard.
— Edited to add: John Townsend very kindly sent me some bye totals for this year on Twitter: Prior 122 (16 innings), Dhoni 103 (22 innings), Carlton Baugh 65 (19 innings). This surprised me somewhat. I knew Dhoni was a good gloveman, but I thought the combination of Prior’s skill, the accuracy of his bowlers and the fact that he played in fewer matches would give him a better total. The weight of Prior’s runs with the bat still gives him a place in the side (he averaged 37.98 runs better than Dhoni with the bat, so an extra 2.94 per innings conceded is not problematic) but it’s interesting that he has farther to go with the gloves than I thought. —

Dale Steyn and Jimmy Anderson share the new ball in this XI. Both have led their respective attacks brilliantly this year. Steyn finished amongst the top ten quick bowlers in terms of number of wickets despite the fact that South Africa only played five matches and he was also the only full time bowler (Mike Hussey absolutely does not count) to have an average under 20 this year. Anderson had the second highest wicket tally amongst quicks this year, and achieved that in only seven matches (as he missed the Lord’s Test against Sri Lanka). He and Steyn were the only two bowlers to average better than five wickets per match this year. First change is Stuart Broad who finally remembered the importance of pitching it in the batsman’s half of the pitch. His overall numbers this year are quite impressive, 33 wickets in seven matches at an average of 22.30, but he actually did not have a great series against Sri Lanka at the start of the summer. He was still pitching the ball short and trying to be the ‘enforcer’. Against India he went back to the fuller length of the Oval 2009 and took 25 wickets in the four matches at an amazing 13.84 apiece. It was one of the best bowling performances in a series one will see, and he also chipped in by scoring 182 runs at 60.66 against India. As much as it pained me not to give the spinner’s slot to Graeme Swann, the fact is that he had a very quiet year. He only took 27 wickets in eight matches, though a large part of that was because the seamers were cleaning up at the other end. Even if he had had a fantastic year, however, it would have been impossible to ignore Saeed Ajmal. In eight matches he took 50 wickets at just shy of 24. It’s true that they were against weak teams, but statistically he was the best bowler, paceman or spinner, of the year.

I expect there are not a lot people who would agree with every one of my selections. The batsmen were particularly difficult, but amongst the bowlers Umar Gul made a very good case for selection as well. The biggest flaw is probably that there are three proper tailenders after Stuart Broad. The top order is such that those three are very unlikely to have to bat at all though. I doubt many would think the players selected are undeserving, but I would still greatly like to see your XI in the comments.