England will take on New Zealand in a test series in the Southern Hemisphere and it’s a battle between teams which have seen more lows than highs since 2005. Both teams are in my view middle of ranking tables which makes it for an interesting match up.
English team has a quite a few quality individual cricketers but just don’t seem to play as a team. They have a good middle order with Ian Bell, Kevin Petersen, Paul Collingwood and a decent but developing opener in Alistair Cook. I think the weak links are Michael Vaughan (past his sell by date) and Andrew Strauss (tried, tested and failed). I don’t understand why English team is reluctant to give opportunities to Owais Shah.
I also suspect they have their batting order wrong. Ian Bell is at his most effective at No.6, not so much at No.3. All his centuries have been at No. 6 in the order. In any case, given the current squad, my preferred batting order would be
1. Michael Vaughan
2. Alistair Cook
3. Kevin Petersen
4. Paul Collingwood
5. Owais Shah
6. Ian Bell
7. Tim Ambrose (no wonder Chris Read is in ICL)
8. Stuart Broad
9. Ryan Sidebottom
10. Matthew Hoggard
11. Monty Panesar
I will never play Steve Harminson. Its better for a captain to have a predictable player. Though you could argue that Harminson is equally predictable – always likely to spray the ball J I think he is one of the most over rated bowlers in the world. English have a history of over rating their cricketers. They always used to claim that Jack Russell was the best wicketkeeper in the planet in his hey days. Ever heard of Ian Healy or Nayan Mongia lads!
New Zealand team on the other hand has been rocked by the ‘defections’ to ‘rebel’ Indian Cricket League (ICL). They have a very weak batting and bowling line up. Save and except Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum and to an extent Daniel Vettori, the team is short of class.
Anything less than a 2-0 series win for England will be nothing short of a disaster for the English team.
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