Bell the unfortunate victim of Cook’s undroppable status
AFTER their Test mauling at the hands of Pakistan it was inevitable that England, hamstrung having made Alastair Cook their one-day captain, would drop one of their senior batsmen ahead of the limited overs series against the same opposition.
With Cook undroppable, any one of Kevin Pietersen, Eoin Morgan, Jonathan Trott or Ian Bell could have been sent home early, but it’s the latter who has paid the price for his inability to pick Saeed Ajmal.
Bell clearly hasn’t had the best of tours but he’s hardly alone in that respect and were Cook, who struggles against spin just as much, not being groomed to inherit the Test captaincy from Andrew Strauss he may well have lost his place.
With the Warwickshire stalwart out of the way Pietersen is promoted back up to the top of the order to resume a role he took on with some success during last year’s World Cup before injury brought about a premature end to his tournament.
Hopefully the increased responsibility will help drag him out of a slump that is holding England back in all formats of the game.
Meanwhile, the traditional route into the Test team via county cricket simply doesn’t exist any more, so youngsters Jos Buttler, a gifted big-hitting batsman, Hampshire’s left-arm spinner Danny Briggs as well as Jonny Bairstow should be looking to use this series as a means of propelling themselves into the five-day setup.
The return of Tim Bresnan, who missed the Test whitewash with an elbow injury and is practically an automatic selection, means the exposure of the aforementioned trio might be limited. But should Samit Patel and Ravi Bopara, both of whom are entering the last chance saloon, fail again their chances will arrive.
After outperforming Graeme Swann in the Test series Monty Panesar could be forgiven for wondering what he has to do to break into the one-day team, particularly considering how much cricket England are due to play in the subcontinent over the next few years.
But for all his improvement, Panesar still offers little with the bat and even less in the field – with the way one-day cricket has evolved you simply can’t afford to carry anyone.
Andy Lloyd is a former England Test cricketer who made 17,211 first-class career runs.
ENGLAND | ODI and T20 SQUADS
ONE DAY SQUAD: Alastair Cook, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Danny Briggs, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Craig Kieswetter, Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott
TWENTY20 SQUAD: Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Jonny Bairstow, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Danny Briggs, Jos Buttler, Jade Dernbach, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Craig Kieswetter, Eoin Morgan, Samit Patel, Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann