England squad to South Africa to be announced today

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Luke Wright is not yet good enough as a batsman or a bowler to be a test player.

Luke Wright is a joke selection.

F*ck off kids. He's TNF.

Luke Wright

FC average.... bat 35 ball 43

Cheaping ' England Allrounders '

He's CCS and FEC, it seems.

Counting Crows Singer and Future England Captain?

Phurt.

Anyone seen Plunkett bowl recently? His stats for this year are actually not unimpressive.

No Tremlett, but then he was gash this season. Sigh. What a waste

Plunketts figures look ok but then so do GBH's.

And from what I saw of Durham on TV he's still doing that retarded thing with his hands as he walks back after lobbing one down the legside.

Looks much improved, to me. Stonger action, higher arm. Gets it through at a lick. Only seen him on the telly though (as we didn't play Durham much). Still, that's a helluva lot more recently and more in depth than Red, who's some sort of 2006 twat.

Brass Monkey wrote:Looks much improved, to me. Stonger action, higher arm. Gets it through at a lick. Only seen him on the telly though (as we didn't play Durham much). Still, that's a helluva lot more recently and more in depth than Red, who's some sort of 2006 twat.

Wasn't 2006 a vintage year for twats?

Not sure. I mean there's the Aussies, but they're twats each and every year.

Suppose there was Inzi, Hair and co...

There was the groundsman at Trent Bridge.

Uhhh.... Warne and McGrath were still playing, but that's already been covered.

Luke Wright is a wild card selection. He'll probably do well.



http://msnsport.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12040_5616871,00.html?ocid=today


Love the headline

Watch the video on that link. Geoff Miller's media skills have a lot to be desired.



Just say, "Steve Harmison is a pea-hearted sook".

Just realised, Owais Shah has been dumped from the ODI side too.

what's this? we've had several below par scores and they've ditched a batsman? Can't be right - it's usually a bowler or two carries the can.

Dunno why they're taking that Anderson bloke, he was tripe in his last game

Not sure it's the batsman to pick personally........

Still struggling to get my head round the Wright pick.

Technically poor with the bat for test cricket, and not good enough with the ball for FC cricket. I didn't expect us to pick a 'jack of all, master of none' merchant in the hunt for the 'New Freddie' so quickly... Sigh.

So, no Monty, Bopara or Harmison. Bopara out of both squads now

Shah history too !

Edit: whoops, covered by JKL already ...

Seems like Shah's now completely out of the picture ... Strausser not wanting to give Sniffer any excuses re. subs/runners due "cramp" !!

JKLever wrote:Still struggling to get my head round the Wright pick.

Technically poor with the bat for test cricket, and not good enough with the ball for FC cricket. I didn't expect us to pick a 'jack of all, master of none' merchant in the hunt for the 'New Freddie' so quickly... Sigh.

I expected us to pick one before long, though would have guessed at Bresnan being picked in the not-quite-good-enough-bowler-who-can-bat-a-bit role.

No reserve opener either, is MYTWRYT going to be our TAYne POCson?

Seriously, I mean Farking seriously..... This beggars belief, I am astonished.

Our useless bunch of fecking selectors can select Luke the fecking hacker Wright, 1 score of over 50 in any form of the game, and that was a T20 hack against the Windies is in our Test Squad as an all-rounder.

I cannot write the words down as to how embarrassed I am that he is in the squad!!



The OD selections, I CGAF about to be honest, although think Owais going for Cook is a bit of a joke really.

So basically we are going to go around and round in circles looking for the next Fred, like we did with Botham, and pick any old hack that can bat and bowl a bit. We have Broad, Hacker Wright and Plunkett being given a shot!

At least in fairness to Broad & Plunkett they're being picked for their bowling.

Wright?

Farkin hell. I've no idea.

Re, Cook in ODI's - not the worst recall, he's certainly got better at it - had an excellent T20 & Pro40 domestic season

To be honest, I'm fairly okay with those squads - more adventurous than I was expecting.

Obviously Bell shouldn't be in the Test squad (Ramps was having a veiled dig the other day about the number of chances Warwickshire players seem to get, in spite of repeated failures, from a selection panel including the Warwickshire coach - wondered why no-one was talking up Michael Carberry), and the seam bowling looks one-dimensional, but that was always going to be the case.

Cook's lucky to make the Test squad, IMHO, which makes his promotion to the ODI squad too a classic England selection mystery. I make it four one-day openers in the squad (five if you consider that Trott has been first up for Warwicks of late), but not even one back-up opener in the Test squad. Muddled?

Luke Wright? Yeah, what the hell. Bresnan, the alternative, is a lump of dump. The Wrightster averaged almost 50 with the bat, took his wickets @ 32 in FC cricket last season. He'll be a fooking brilliant drinks carrier.

Still say he's got some talent. F*cked if I know how England are going to get it out of him, but I'd fancy they've got more chance of refining his game than some mediocre county. He can bowl quite fast. And he can hit. It's a starting point...

About time they stopped messing around and gave Davies the back-up job as keeper. He's genuine competition for Mussex, and there was terrifying talk of Geraint Jones being inked in.

Nice to see Saj back in the set up, although it feels a whole lot more like a case of "we've pretty much tried everyone else, might as well re-try some of the earlier failures" with his and Plunkett's selection. Both dumped after the 2007 WC, now both back at the same time - perhaps that's the selection cycle: two years of trying eveyone else, then back to the beginning.

Good: Pietersen back, Trott, Rashid, Davies, Saj, Harmison given the heave ho.
Bad: Bell, Collingwood still easily holding on to his Test place in spite of a stinking Ashes, ditto Cook, Shah seemingly carrying the can for England's ODI failings.
Indifferent: Wright's not going to play. Where would Cook fit into the ODI line-up? What does Sidebottom do these days, since giving up taking wickets back in '08?

They're reasonable squads, I reckon. Though Carbs should be in the Test squad as an opener who can also bat three. Seems bizarre that it looks like being a straight fight between Bell and Trott for the number three slot: don't think either of them are suited to it.

Yes, there's certainly value in bowlers who can bat. It could be said our tail effectively won us the Ashes. We've got no world-beating bowlers so if it's a choice between mediocre ones who can bat and mediocre ones who can't...

There's some good signs in there, they've been ruthless with a few players they needed to be - Harmison (waste of space 90% of the time for years), Bopara (if he's got anything about him he will learn from the experience and come back stronger), Shah (his Champions Trophy performance could reasonably have saved him but the negatives perhaps outweigh the positives now). And been brave enough to pick three uncapped players in the Test squad, which is at least two more than I expected, along with the once-capped Trott.

Also some bad signs - only 6 specialist batsmen and still refusing to bring a third opener into the Test setup, Bell retained though was inevitable after his "Ashes winning" (as the selectors will no doubt claim for the next decade) 70-odd, lack of out-and-out pace, Prior still in the one-day setup, the early surfacing of the desperation to find an all-rounder. But to be honest I expected worse, the Sky pundits proved more cautious than the actual selectors!

They've dropped Shah after that 98 against South Africa? Utter b*stards. Utter, utter b*stards. B*stards of the first b*stard degree. B*stards.

The test bowling looks weak but Harmi or anyone else knocking about in county cricket wouldn't have stengthened it much.

I dearly hope Plunkett and Mahmood have developed their games.

Wright's a punt- but probably comparable to Freddy at the same age. As long as the airline tickets and hotels don't cost too much, probably useful to have in the squad. He's not going anywhere near the mini-bar though.