Ever since Chris Woakes was added to the England squad I had a feeling he would play some part in this fith and final Investec Ashes’ test match. England had been carrying Finn, Onions & Tremlett round with them for most parts of the first four tests, so why would they put somebody new in at this point without the intention of blooding them?
Simon Kerrigan, I think, was picked to give England the option of two spinners on a potential turning Oval wicket. With Monty Panesar pissing on his own chips (literally), Kerrigan was the natural inclusion based on County Championship form this season. I don’t think anybody expected him to play.
I don’t understand Alastair Cook’s thinking for one second. England played on a wicket that would suit five bowlers at Old Trafford and they had their perfect man for it in Tim Bresnan. I am not Bresnan’s biggest fan but if he plays then his role as the third/fourth seamer with the ability to also bat at seven gets him the gig. Instead they went with four bowlers and they include Bresnan anyway.
Woakes inclusion means England view him as number 2 to Bresnan in the being able to bowl and hold a bat club. Broad & Swann have associate memberships but it seems Cook & Flower don’t trust Broad to bat at eight meaning Bresnan will always play when we play four bowlers? However Broad will now bat at eight when England play five bowlers (and we have less batting), so that theory must go out of the window?
Playing four bowlers in my view means that you are playing the extra batsmen (Bairstow) meaning that your four bowlers have to be the strongest bowlers as they are going to have extra work-load and need the ability to bowl out the opposition quicker. I think Tremlett, Onions & Finn are all better bowlers than Brensnan. Bresnan will have his day, but over the course of a five match series I would back the other three to take more wickets and create more problems 9 out of 10 times.
So England decide that because Bresnan isn’t fit, Woakes comes into the squad. Bairstow has struggled, and therefore they want to play five bowlers? Did they play five bowlers because they had a doubt on who replaced the out of form Bairstow? Can James Taylor bat at six?
Cook has created this problem for himself. England had a perfectly good number six in Joe Root. Number six is such a difficult place to bat. How often does a number six come in to bat in a lose-lose situation? Either England are 300/4 and they are expected to push on, or England are 60/4 and they are the last hope? However Cook, for once, rushed a decision in getting Root to the top of the order. Root has looked far from comfortable at the top and he actually fitted the number six role quite well whilst he found his feet in international Cricket. Will England swallow their pride and bring Compton back to open the batting in Australia this winter? Or is the answer elsewhere? I will go over that in a later blog!
For me the root of this problem is Cook & Flower’s first thought seems to be “How are we not going to lose this Test Match?”. The safe option is always to load the batting, so six bastmen, four bowlers and a keeper with Bresnan as one of the bowlers aswell as Broad & Swann mean we bat all the way down to number ten if needed. With Bresnan injured Woakes came in and I think for once England made a risky call in going with five bowlers because Bresnan wasn’t fit.
Finally, On the Kerrigan inclusion people say “It shows how hard it is to come from Division 2 of the Championship”. However when you take a look through the top wicket takes in Division 1 you have to scroll right down the list until you find a certain Monty Panesar with 23 wickets this season in 11 matches, those on relatively dry wickets. Also tied with him is Samit Patel – don’t even get me started on Samit. Under Monty (not the bouncers this time) you have the likes of Rayner, Rashid, Borthwick – it would have been take your pick time. Do you think any of those would have done a better job than Kerrigan? Simon Kerrigan has taken 47 wickets in just 10 matches at an average of 20 and an economy rate of 2.5, he has taken five five-wicket hauls and one ten-wickets in the match haul. If England were going to punish Monty then I think they got this one right, and unfortunately nerves just got the better of Simon.
The New Ball 