England's best off-spinner
Naturally enough, with one test to go thoughts in the press have turned to who will be selected for England's pre-Xmas tour to Sri Lanka (it can no longer be termed the "winter tour" because they go to New Zealand in February too). It is a very rare team that plays with just one spinner in Sri Lanka so the key consideration is who should back up Monty Panesar as the spinning options in the squad. For me the option for the final XI is very simple - Michael Vaughan should be the second spinner.
That opinion is based on two things - 1) an off-spinner is preferable as Chaminda Vaas, (possibly) Ryan Sidebottom and (certainly) Monty Panesar, will create a fair amount of rough for an off-spinner to exploit. And 2) we don't have anyone better than Vaughan as an off-spinner. He doesn't do enough bowling for us to really be able to tell, but that is my opinion - what do you think?
3 comments:
I think Vaughan as a second spinner is probably fair enough. He's not going to run through teams, especially not ones as good against spin as Sri Lanka, but thats what Monty is there for. Vaughan would just be used as a support bowler. I don't necessarily agree that you have to pick an off spinner though.
I keep hearing good things about Adil Rashid (from some pretty good judges too in Warney and Lehman), but i think you have to be very careful about bringing guys into test cricket too young, especially spinners. It probably wouldn't hurt to take him on the tour though.
Yes, I agree with that - he certainly turns it more than most, and is infinitely better than the specialist off-spinners (Batty et al) and the other, dreadful, option of Showpony.
What happened to Alex Louden?
I liked the look of him when i was over there in 05?.
Cheads
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