Well, England have named their squad.

No Vaughan and no Bell.

Call ups for Tim Bresnan and Graham Onions.

Swann preferred to Monty.

Squad in full: Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Graham Onions, Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Graeme Swann.


Do this make you confident for the bigger task ahead at the end of the year?

Bit surprised as I thought the ECB would take the first chance they got to bring Vaughan back.

Pffft.

It'll teach me for using the BBC website as a reliable source.

If he had scored any runs they may well have done

Overdue for Bresnan - had a good all-round season last year and has taken wickets at the start of this season.

If the intention is to bat Prior at 6 and Broad at 7 then having Bresnan at 8 would back the middle order up a bit too.

I think Prior's a racing cert to bat at 6, so Bresnan does help bolster the batting, I could even see him batting at 7.

As for the rest - a big test for Ravi having to bat at 3, especially this early in the season when the balls liable to do a bit more, but he deserves his chance. Also pleased that they've gone for Onions over Harmison, which is an easy decision on form, but we all know how that's not been the case over the past few years.

That makes for a worryingly long tail. Only five specialist batsmen, including one (Bopara) who remains unestablished at Test level. I'm pleased to see Onions called up. He's the best current English fast bowler yet to win a Test cap IMO - Seems to have been rather injury prone in recent years though.

Seeing that selection I'm not especially confident for the bigger series later in the summer, though having said that we picked a relatively young side with a long-ish tail for the victorious 2005 series.

...and he's out for 5 today too!!

The batting order looks very weak for me. Bopara I don't think will ever be a no.3 and with Prior at 6 it puts way too much pressure on the others. Bresnan and Broad would help to pad out the tail but it still looks weak to me.

I'm surprised at Onions, he was injured a lot last season and he has only played 1/2 games so far this season.

Prior's greatly improved it seems and deserves a decent run at 6. Bopara doesn't strike me as a natural number three but lets give him a chance and see what happens. Owais Shah had his and blew it, the fidgety sod.

As Penguin says, others have blown their chance at number 3, so I guess Ravi's just the next cab off the rank. He hardly comes across as a natural, he looks much more suited to 5/6, but I suppose he deserves a go. Put it this way, I'd be a lot happier with a "proper" number 3 in there, Ravi at 6 and the rest of them moving down a place, it would make the tail look a lot stronger.

Hopefull Bell or Vaughan will make a shedload of runs in the next few weeks and come into contention for the Ashes, unless Bopara does well against the Windies.

Onions got a Michelle already today

Holy moly! Look at that for confidence!

And at Taunton of all places!

Owais Shah should be miles from the england test team - right decision
lot of time for bopara though - think he could develop into a good test batsman

Vaughan will play against Australia anyway

Strauss
Cook
Vaughan
Pietersen
Bopara
Flintoff
Prior
Broad
Harmison
Anderson
Panesar

Will be our 11 for the first ashes test

Not confident at all with that squad. It's quite inexperienced and when you compare it with the likes of Gayle, Sarwan, Chanderpaul, Edwards and Jerome Taylor, it looks weak.

I think the selectors have been quite brave and they have to be saluted for that - it would have been so very easy to have picked Vaughan/Bell and Harmison but they haven't, they've gone down the younger, more to prove route and I for one applaud that.

I feel a little sorry for Owais Shah as he hasn't been given the true chance and long-run at 3 he was promised, but he hasn't played any cricket yet this season so fair enough. And Ravi Bopara plays at 3 or 4 for Essex and scores plenty of runs for them so why not give him a chance in the Test team??

Would also mean you'd need to find 10-12 overs per day from the likes of Bopara or Pietersen, and if one of your seamers gets injured in the game itself you're stuffed...

Exactly, we've done 'bits & pieces' cricketers before, it doesn't work. The top six need to get the runs, and get bowlers who take 20 wickets. I'm not a Bresnan fan really, unless he's come on tremendous amounts from the Sri Lankans literally smacking out of the park ball after ball. Onions has been probably one of the most consistent quick bowlers for the last couple of years on the county scene, so deserves his chance.

It's up to these fellas to take their chance now, do a Richard Johnson.

Why would it? We'd still have 4 top line bowlers in the line up, which presumably would include a spinner. Other countries do that on a regular basis with no issues, Australia built their domination on that split. OK, we've nobody within light years of Warne and McGrath, but I'd prefer us to go that way at the minute.

If the pitch isn't a turner - and in England in May/June that's a distinct possibility - it puts the onus on your three quicks turning out 20+ overs a day. If your spinner gets smacked out of the attack, where do you go then?

The difference with that Australian side is that they could throw the ball to Warne for 25-30 overs a day and rotate the seamers around him. Their downfall in 2005 was that they couldn't back McGrath up consistently, and only having four bowlers meant that when Gillespie/Kasprowicz/Tait struggled they ran out of options.

If it's not a turner then don't play a spinner.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/counties/yorkshire/8028872.stmVaughan injured playing football.[/url