Fred's fear of Monty

After being the best bowler yesterday afternoon, Monty was only asked to bowl six overs today. Why was that then? Bizarre. I still fancy England to win this test, if the weather holds, but even so, why not Monty today.

Monty and the balance of the team

Following Monty's fine performance yesterday, I've been thinking, should the balance of the England team be altered? At the moment, the management appear to be trying to fit players into a model team of 5 batsmen, an all rounder, a batting wicket keeper, a bowler who can bat and three others who can't. It seems though that Ashley Giles is the only candidate for the role of a bowler who can bat. Plunkett doesn't look up to it to me. Ashley will be back from injury soon probably, but his coming back into the team would mean dropping Monty, and Monty is starting to look like a class act. 2-26 from 15 overs on an unhelpful wicket against well set batsmen who are good players of spin? That's impressive.
For years Australia have got away with playing just four bowlers because of the quality of those four bowlers, and in particular the quality of their spinner. Warne contains. He takes wickets and he can bowl a lot more overs during a day than a seamer. I'm not suggesting that Panesar will ever be even nearly as good as Warne, but if he can consistently take wickets and concede runs at less than three an over, then why not pick him with three other seamers? This idea seems particularly sensible if one or more of our four leading seamers isn't fit (as is often the case), and let's face it, old Ashley is little more than a stock bowler, who can be carted around if he's not at his best.
The question for the selectors is: would three of Harmison, Jones, Flintoff and Hoggard, plus Giles, plus AN Other represent a stronger bowling attack than the same three plus Panesar? I'm not so sure. Of course, the batting would also be significantly stronger with the second option. Just a thought.

Back once again it is the incredible...

...Rhyme animal? Nah, cricket. Or, to be more precise, Test cricket involving England. Cue massive excitement, except... oh dear. Sri Lanka seem to be doing a good impression of Bangladesh. Actually, that's probably a bit unfair on old Bangladesh.
Still, I was heartened by the team selection. Much as I wanted Bell to be dropped, I didn't think that he would be. Cook sounds like a better prospect. If Vaughan ever comes back, there'll be four openers at the top of the English order. Lots of folk seem to think that Trescothick should be dropped down the order for the Ashes, but that there is crazy talk. He is England's best opener since Boycott. In fact, his stats are slightly more impressive than Boycott's. Sorry Geoffrey. Who was the best before him? Len Hutton? I still think that it might be worth trying Strauss at number 5 as a kind of ersatz Graham Thorpe, but then playing spin isn't his strength really is it? So maybe not.
I was also very pleased to see Sajid Mahmood selected ahead of Lewis. Perhaps Sajid will be another (like Flintoff, Jones, and Harmison) to take a while to develop, but he hasn't started too badly has he?
The only selection I wasn't too keen on was that of Plunkett. Silly name for starters, although that shouldn't be held against him. He seems to be selected for his batting though. His bowling doesn't sound as if it's up to much. I can't remember him ever scoring many runs either. Personally I always think that it's a mistake to pick bits and pieces cricketers because, at Test level, they're usually not good enough to take wickets or score runs.
I won't start on GO Jones.