There may be troubles ahead: England selection issues.

[ianp1970]

Quite happy with our side atm AC, just saying that 3/5 are the positions that need to get filled.

A better spinner would be ideal, but Swann is a hard act to replace.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Fair enough!

[Slipstream]

Think Woakes should be batting ahead of Ali. Woakes in the first innings showed the rest of the players how to bat. You feel safe when he is at the crease. Back to 8 for Ali.

[Aidan11]

I wouldn't even have Ali in the side.

That big hundred against SL probably saved him from the chop but I'd rather see someone like Rashid given a chance.

[hopeforthebest]

England have added James Anderson, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid to their squad for the second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford, which begins on Friday.

Middlesex bowler Toby Roland-Jones drops out, but both Steven Finn and Jake Ball retain their places.

The selectors leave the options wide open for Bayliss and Cook.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Looks more like a touring party than a squad for a Test. Six pace bowlers!

[hopeforthebest]

Looks more like a touring party than a squad for a Test. Six pace bowlers!

Maybe you've hit the nail on the tread AC, this is the probable tour party for the winter so that Trev and Cookie can practice picking teams.

[Aidan11]

Ali will finally be looking over his shoulder with Rashid being selected.

[Dr Cricket]

That should have no bearing anyway considering all the games are recorded and the selectors and coach can view every ball every team faces.
Flower actually use to watch quite a bit of players like this.

TBH Bayliss should be able to keep on tabs lots of county players without even watching one game live.

How many county games have been televised this year? It's time you started to match your opinions to the real world.

see this article.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016 ... ngland-sh/

The England coaches also have access to modern technology. They can see every ball a batsman has faced or bowler has bowled on their laptop through the cameras the ECB sets up at every championship match. On Sunday Trevor Bayliss would have been able to go on his ipad and watch the double hundred Aneurin Donald smashed for Glamorgan that day.

He can then ring the coaches at Glamorgan or send one of the specialist Loughborough coaches to go and watch him.

They also have plenty of opportunity to judge players when they are with the Lions squad and through the player pathway programme. It is an excellent set up giving the Loughborough coaches a chance to judge a player with their own eyes.

the number of county games being on tv has no bearing on this since that is because of the contractual reason, but ECB does have Cameras at all grounds and uses them to help selector don't know if these are the same one that county websites uses.

[hopeforthebest]

Excellent article from George Dobell, he obviously has read my posts on here.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-p ... 36201.html

[Dr Cricket]

Really good article.

[Slipstream]

England have added James Anderson, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid to their squad for the second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford, which begins on Friday.

Middlesex bowler Toby Roland-Jones drops out, but both Steven Finn and Jake Ball retain their places.

The selectors leave the options wide open for Bayliss and Cook.

Roland-Jones has quietly joined the Lions. A bit old compared to the rest of the squad.
Ball is carrying an injury - tight quad muscle (I thought the selectors were picking only players that were 100% fit)
Both of these bowlers have a selector as their county coach.

[hopeforthebest]

England have added James Anderson, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid to their squad for the second Test against Pakistan at Old Trafford, which begins on Friday.

Middlesex bowler Toby Roland-Jones drops out, but both Steven Finn and Jake Ball retain their places.

The selectors leave the options wide open for Bayliss and Cook.

Roland-Jones has quietly joined the Lions. A bit old compared to the rest of the squad.
Ball is carrying an injury - tight quad muscle (I thought the selectors were picking only players that were 100% fit)
Both of these bowlers have a selector as their county coach.

No Slipstream, having an injury is almost a prerequisite for fast bowlers to get selected.

[Dr Cricket]

yeah a fast bowler not having any sort of injury is weird.
That not the reason why Anderson didn't get picked, he didn't get picked because of how many games he missed in the last 18 months and the time it takes him to recover from injuries now.
Really England are scared Anderson would do a steyn and get injured and miss most of 2 Test series because he keeps on rushing back to bowl again.

Surprised many of the press are not seeing this.

Newman joining the bandwagon of Bayliss needing to know county players more, but starting to agree with Dobell article rather than Bayliss watching more of the footage and being the only selector alongside Cook.
Although suppose they could just be the only official selectors and the rest of them are scouts, since in football I doubt all managers sees all their signings in flesh and generally are dependent on their scouts for signings people.
So no reason why England can't pick players using a similar system especially unlike football the players are based in England and not across the world.

[sussexpob]

Excellent article from George Dobell, he obviously has read my posts on here.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england-v-p ... 36201.html

I dont consider this to be an even remotely acceptable piece of journalism, let alone excellent. A rare miss by someone I generally consider to be the pick of commentators on the English game. I cant escape the ethos of this article being dragged into "one loss, major problem" territory. Its reactive, and not well thought out, and seems to use unjustifiable points that dont really mean anything in the long run.

Comparisons to Bayliss being less involved in selection over Flower and Fletcher are, for me, pretty moronic. So the previous two had a more iron grip on selection, but was this ever a positive? And what tactics in selection were they making? Was this positive?

Fletcher is often credited as a man who found players from nowhere, but in truth that does not standup to micro-critique when looking at his picks as a whole, and when they came. Trescothick was a left-field pick, he came good, Simon Jones was too. These are probably the only two that come to memory that made it big. Vaughan is often heaped into that list, but he was part of the A team, had a good year in 1998 (Average plus 40) and was always seen as a techincally sound player destined to play a part in the future. Fletcher just enacted that.

Fletcher's initial picks in 1999 coming from Glamorgan were, quite frankly, car crashes. And all could have been picked from a list of either "widely acknowledged reputation" or from a list of stats from that year or the years previous. Habib averaged 50 odd in the two years before debut. Hamilton took over 100 wickets at under 20. Maddy was widely seen as a all round candidate who's batting was respected. Chris Read was known as a young batting prospect and the best keeper in the business. More than anything, Fletcher recognised temporaral form in batsman, and a combination of form and type with bowlers. Statistically his best bowler he ever picked was Sidebottom in terms of averages.... a man he capped once and never played again. There was negatives and positives to Fletcher. I dont think Fletcher ever watched people. He got a tip off on Jones being fast, reverse capable and decided that worthy to work on. Fletcher was a great developer as coach, but he also went through tonnes of players. I could probably list three teams worth of dross he picked and went through. He really scrapped the barrel, and missed more than he hit. He was just able to make a nucleus of players from his hits become a successful team.

As for Flower, he didnt identify anyone. He took Moores' team. He never was capable of adding to that. So his role in seleciton quite frankly might have been all encompassing, and he could have watched every minute of every game in the winter..... yet he couldnt pick a test player had he been managing 10 Ricky Ponting's in his county side. His record to recycling success shows failure as soon as the fabric of previous coaches players faded away. James Vince apparently is revered by him, and Flower was a man man in his selection..... he has the worst performance out of all of them.Flower was another person who developed talent, but spotting it was by far his biggest weakness.

Its quite clear that the selectors are relied upon to produce players for consideration. Thats their job. The suggestion that a coach should leave an international game to watch a player is one of the most absurd things I have heard!!! And I ask one question....... who should be in the team? Who is Bayliss missing out on? No suggestions are made because all the picks in terms of facts and figures make sense. Robson could have come back, and COmpton/Ballance could of had more form before coming back, but you would be replacing them with inferior performers, and often either (in Robson's case) other failed cricketers.... or in other cases, people who play at inferior levels.

At the end of the day, Bayliss is turning our one day team into an exciting prospect by picking the right people.... something no one can claim to have ever done. And considering the darkness of the end of Moores and Flower, England have progressed very well. There are batting issues yes, but lets not forget how low it got in recent times before we start complaining that England havent in the space of 12 months became the best team on the planet.