England’s World Twenty20 Squad
England’s selection of their provisional, 30-man squad for the World Twenty20 raises some interesting questions and gives the selectors the opportunity to be brave and forward-thinking. They probably won’t be, but I’ll assume that they will and stick my neck out:
The Captain
Rob Key could be the man to captain England in the World Twenty20. He should be that man. He must be.
Why?
He has not resigned, or been sacked from, the England captaincy within the last 12 months
He has never been found drunk in charge of a pedalo during an International tournament
He is a proper captain with plenty of Twenty20 experience
Andrew Strauss thinks he would do a good job
The Provisional Squad
The selectors should resist the urge to cram the final 15 with contracted players
Sidebottom has bowled himself out of the team. His fielding is not up to standard.
Ian Bell and England are supposed to be “on a break”
Anderson is too expensive in Twenty20 – there are better options in this format
Harmison thinks the world owes him a favour
On the other hand they should not throw in too many young players. Rashid and Woakes have only played a handful of Twenty20 matches. Morgan should be allowed to play for Ireland, for whom he is guaranteed to play.
GCW’s final England World Twenty20 squad (starting XI first):
- Key (c)
- Bopara
- Shah
- Pietersen
- Collingwood
- Mascarenhas
- Napier
- Flintoff
- Foster (wk)
- Broad
- Swann
- Denly
- Kabir Ali
- Prior
- Bresnan
Foster starts ahead of Prior as he is a better keeper, and a good lower order hitter for T20. Prior could play as a specialist batsman if required.
Denly could replace Shah if there are concerns over his fielding. Otherwise, Shah’s batting gets him the nod.
The starting XI contains seven players who are capable of doing a job with the ball – Bopara, Collingwood, Mascarenhas, Napier, Flintoff, Broad and Swann.
All members of the squad are capable of scoring a few runs, and the batting order can be highly flexible.
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