Asim wrote:Broad has been England cricket's golden boy for a long time, he showed signs in 2009 that he was about to justify the faith and hype, but he'd gone backwards since then IMO.
With regard to this test I think the trio of Anderson, Tremlett and Bresnan gave the seam attack great balance and variety Down Under and deserve the chance to have first crack at the Indians - the fact we have a few options if it doesn't work out is a very good position for us to be in.
I agree with all of that. I remember being at Colchester for Surrey v Essex on the day Broad skittled the Aussies at The Oval and the crowd cheering every wicket as news came through. He seemed to have cracked it, but now he's beginning to resemble a bowling version of Ramprakash or Hick, except instead of being dropped then recalled on county form he just never gets dropped! I even found myslef agreeing with Kent fans in a conversation at The Oval last week, and that's saying something!
Broad originally lost his place to Tremlett through injury, then when Finn was dropped for Bresnan one match later we seemd to have hit upon the perfect unit, winning the last two Tests by an innings and plenty.
Alright, that was on the other side of the world in different conditions and Bresnan, as well as Anderson briefly, have had spells out injured since, but it just seems like the selectors can't wait to ink Broad's name in on the teamsheet. For what it's worth we clinched the ODI series after he'd been "rested", yet it seems he only has to bowl in the nets after injury or take a couple of county wickets after a loss of form to get back in.
Andy Gilder wrote:I'm assuming if Bresnan gets released back to Yorkshire tomorrow morning they can use him to replace Wardlaw in the Roses game? That's my understanding of the rules anyway...
I'm not sure how this works any more, and I think it's a bit of a farce. In an ideal world this round of county matches would start a day after the Test (and finish on the same day) so the England twelfth man could comfortably join his county and the ECB could potentially upset the tourists by summoning a gymnastic whippet from a local second XI to act as substitute fielder for England, but the fixture list is such a mess at the moment we have matches taking place on all sorts of random days of the week.
Personally i feel replacements to the XI should only be allowed if a member of the original XI is summoned as an injury replacement for England, as Jade Dernbach was a few weeks ago. In fact even under those circumstances I'd be inclined to suggest England should just have to pick someone else not already involved in a match.
If someone isn't available when a match starts that's just tough. There was a ridiculous situation a few weeks back when Warwickshire picked William Porterfield and Boyd Rankin for a Championship match in the full knowledge they were required to fly to Ireland for a couple of ODIs (against Pakistan I think?) after day one, and they were still allowed two full replacements.
