Ordsall Quays Red wrote:
Prime candidates to replace Strauss at the top of the order? Carberry or Root clearly at the top of the list with possibles including the likes of Chopra, Compton (even though he isn't an opener), Hales, Mitchell in the selector's thoughts.
Carberry, Hales & Mitchell are all having pretty mediocre seasons in the Championship. None has anything like the weight of runs needed to make a convincing case, although Mitchell has just carried his bat for a ton this morning. I'd put Joe Denly & Chris Nash ahead of those three.
Compton is the only man with 1,000 Championship runs before the current round of matches. Chopra has been fairly consistent for a couple of years now and at 26 has 7 or 8 seasons of fairly regular first class cricket behind him.
A tour of India would be a big challenge for someone of Root's inexperience but he looks like the most convincing long-term bet by a distance, and is in decent enough form to boot. Alternatively Compton could bat at 3 with Trott moving up to open. Otherwise I'd rate Chopra as the best bet.
Ordsall Quays Red wrote:
Spinning-wise I think it's time for Kerrigan to tour with the full squad especially if it's a choice between him and Tredwell.
Kerrigan still has a long way to go for me, having seen him mercilessly battered by Pietersen at Guildford last month. KP took over 100 runs off him at almost two runs per ball in a situation where Lancs were looking to enforce the follow on. India might not have anyone as aggressively dominant as that, but I wouldn't fancy him to trouble them in their own back yard on that evidence.
The selectors generally seem to favour an old pro for back-up spin options on the Subcontinent, e.g. Pat Pocock in 1984/5, when we came from behind to beat India, or Shaun Udal a few years back when we levelled the series with Flintoff captaining the side. I would imagine Swann, Panesar, Patel and Tredwell will remain at the forefront of the selectors' thoughts in the spin department.
