There may be troubles ahead: England selection issues.

[hopeforthebest]

I think it's fanciful to imagine they are going to ditch Moeen as the premier spin option next year and if so he should not bat in the top six. I don't believe it's a good idea to have another stroke player joining Root, Stokes and Bairstow when we need Collingwood/Trott type in there.

[ianp1970]

I think it's fanciful to imagine they are going to ditch Moeen as the premier spin option next year and if so he should not bat in the top six. I don't believe it's a good idea to have another stroke player joining Root, Stokes and Bairstow when we need Collingwood/Trott type in there.

So Moeen at 8 with Woakes/Broad/Anderson?

[Making_Splinters]

I think it's fanciful to imagine they are going to ditch Moeen as the premier spin option next year and if so he should not bat in the top six. I don't believe it's a good idea to have another stroke player joining Root, Stokes and Bairstow when we need Collingwood/Trott type in there.

We'll have Hameed, Cook and Jennings somewhere in the top 4, no need to worry about that.

Cook
Hameed
Root
Jennings
Ali
Bairstow
Stokes
Rashid
Woakes
Broad
Anderson

Would be my team for the first Test of the summer, Wood for Woakes if fit.

[ianp1970]

I can see the same team for the summer v SA & WI. However, that does not look like a good line up for Brisbane, Adelaide (D/N) & Perth next winter.

[Making_Splinters]

At the end of the day, if Rashid is a better spinner than Ali, he needs to be in the side, or another spinner needs to come in.

I've seen enough of Ali to think that he can become a top order batsman and would give him the chance to show that. If you stop thinking about him as a spinner and just think about the batting then I don't see why this isn't a decent side for any conditions/

[hopeforthebest]

When a mother thinks of her grown up son, she remembers him as that golden haired toddler and when the England captain sees Moeen on the field he'll see him as his spin option irrespective of why he's been picked.

[Making_Splinters]

An option hope, much the same way that Joe Root is a spin option. Ali's performances with the bat this year merit a chance in the top order next year, Rashid's performance in India merits the chance of being the spinner in the side next year.

I really don't see the issue here.

[alfie]

Actually two (related) issues here , aren't there , Splinters ?

Is Rashid really good enough as a spinner to take that spot in home conditions (given neither his batting nor his fielding are particularly inspiring ) - and , if he does , is Moeen a viable option at five ?

If the answer to both questions is yes. : no problem. But I'm not certain that is clear cut.

Moeen , for all his seemingly accelerating decline as a bowler , has batted well enough to make his selection somewhere in the lineup automatic (England haven't been able to establish one new batsman in the last year or two so why would you discard a man who scores centuries ? Even if he does sometimes rather throw it away...
My query there is that while he might cut it on English pitches , how will he handle Brisbane or Perth ? I'm a little doubtful...though since one might say the same of anyone else who occupies that spot it may be less than relevant...
In any case playing him there against SA and West Indies might help to win the home Tests so why not ?

Which brings me back to question one : having Moeen at eight was undeniably a useful guard against total collapse of the batting order : for obvious reasons he was pushed up on the late unsuccessful tour - but surely his presence late in the order was missed ? It would presumably be missed again if he stayed at five (Rashid has played a couple of useful hands late in the order in Asian conditions but I really don't fancy his chances against Rabada , Morkel etc) ; so if Rashid (or Leach ?) were to be picked as the main spinner they would really need to do a superior job with the ball. Rashid returned reasonable figures overall from this tour ; but I can't get rid of a feeling that too many of his wickets were either too late to be useful or simply more the result of loose batting - and that he was never actually able to exert any influence on the course of a match . To be fair the Indian batsmen were very good in home conditions : but am I alone in fearing he might spend an English summer getting smashed around in the first innings and not actually get many opportunities to bowl on a fifth day pitch ?

To be honest I think it may be down to the prevailing conditions. If the Tests were starting May/June I doubt they'd even consider bothering with a specialist spinner , and would likely just pack the batting and leave Moeen to do the change bowling ; but as they aren't on until July the idea of having someone in the side just for his bowling might become more attractive.

As with the possibilities for another batsman coming in , might it be that selection is down to how they all perform in the early part of the season ?

[Arthur Crabtree]

If Mo did bat at five, or even if he was dropped, England could try two or three spinners over the summer. Though the possibility is that if conditions are cloudy, they might not see much of the ball, and only get much of a bowl at all if the pitch is helping no one. As I've said in the past... this would have been better tried two years ago rather than just accepting the pessimism of a part timer being the best option.

But if Moeen did bat at five, and he doesn't really deserve to be dropped, it's hard to have any confidence in him scoring on Australian pitches. My hunch is the problem will be fudged, Mo will go back to eight and England will lead with four pace bowlers until they go back to Asia.

I wonder if an Asian coach might be good for the character and variety of the team. When the post comes up, there never seem to be any candidates.

[m@tt]

I have no idea what to do about the #8 position. I'm not sure what Buttler would be able to accomplish there. I don't think Rashid or Dawson are good enough to warrant a place in all conditions. And playing 5 quicks is unnecessary. I suspect England will stick with Buttler.

I think Moeen could be a viable option at 5. Though I'm yet to be fully convinced - he'll need to reduce the soft dismissals if he's to average mid-40s there. But he looks a better option than Vince and Ballance who have been tried in the middle-order.

That said, if he can't hold down a spot at 5, what will England do? Move him back to 8? Or try a new front-line spinner? The South Africa series is no time to be experimenting. However against the West Indies, with the late-summer pitches more inclined to spin, England could bring in another spinner - be that Rashid, Leach, Dawson, Rayner.

Funnily enough, this situation could have been avoided had England not (unwisely, in my opinion) decided to punish Stokes for his locker injury with deselection against Sri Lanka in 2014. Stokes had batted and bowled for Durham - he was far more match-fit than Broad and Prior. Instead Ali took up the all-rounder position and now we've got two of them and the never-ending conundrum of fitting them and a WK into the middle-order, with 5 being too high, 8 being too low. Had England picked Stokes vs Sri Lanka, I'm not sure who the spinner would have been (Swann gone, both Monty and Kerrigan destroyed, Borthwick barely bowling) but England would never have picked Moeen as a spinner batting at 8.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Well, officially, Mo was picked as the best available spinner.

[rich1uk]

I have no idea what to do about the #8 position. I'm not sure what Buttler would be able to accomplish there. I don't think Rashid or Dawson are good enough to warrant a place in all conditions. And playing 5 quicks is unnecessary. I suspect England will stick with Buttler.

I think Moeen could be a viable option at 5. Though I'm yet to be fully convinced - he'll need to reduce the soft dismissals if he's to average mid-40s there. But he looks a better option than Vince and Ballance who have been tried in the middle-order.

That said, if he can't hold down a spot at 5, what will England do? Move him back to 8? Or try a new front-line spinner? The South Africa series is no time to be experimenting. However against the West Indies, with the late-summer pitches more inclined to spin, England could bring in another spinner - be that Rashid, Leach, Dawson, Rayner.

Funnily enough, this situation could have been avoided had England not (unwisely, in my opinion) decided to punish Stokes for his locker injury with deselection against Sri Lanka in 2014. Stokes had batted and bowled for Durham - he was far more match-fit than Broad and Prior. Instead Ali took up the all-rounder position and now we've got two of them and the never-ending conundrum of fitting them and a WK into the middle-order, with 5 being too high, 8 being too low. Had England picked Stokes vs Sri Lanka, I'm not sure who the spinner would have been (Swann gone, both Monty and Kerrigan destroyed, Borthwick barely bowling) but England would never have picked Moeen as a spinner batting at 8.

i agree with alot of that

kinda ironic that having 2 all-rounders when most teams struggle to find one is actually causing us selection issues, particularly around team balance

[alfie]

If Mo did bat at five, or even if he was dropped, England could try two or three spinners over the summer. Though the possibility is that if conditions are cloudy, they might not see much of the ball, and only get much of a bowl at all if the pitch is helping no one. As I've said in the past... this would have been better tried two years ago rather than just accepting the pessimism of a part timer being the best option.

But if Moeen did bat at five, and he doesn't really deserve to be dropped, it's hard to have any confidence in him scoring on Australian pitches. My hunch is the problem will be fudged, Mo will go back to eight and England will lead with four pace bowlers until they go back to Asia.

I wonder if an Asian coach might be good for the character and variety of the team. When the post comes up, there never seem to be any candidates.

Funny thing is , when they initially went down the route of Moeen as a stopgap , I remember being rather skeptical ; but he actually did rather well against the Indian batsmen , didn't he ? May have been beginner's luck...but I think it solidified the idea that this was a reasonable option in the selectors ' minds . And also made it difficult to turn around and dump him as soon as he hit a flat spot...
Truth is , Moeen as spinner worked quite well against Australia , and even in SA : figures might not have been great , but it's the combination of bowlers , and the results they get , that count. Pretty clear now that it doesn't work in India or UAE (even with other , supposedly more "full time " spinners added to the mix ) ; but to what degree do you change your team around in more familiar conditions just to prepare for two tours which won't come around again for quite some time ?

Not saying that means never trying anything else ; but I think there are arguments both ways and you can see why they've generally come down in favour of choosing the (apparently) best option for home games. Most teams do , to be honest.

[m@tt]

England were clearly interest in Moeen, as he'd been picked for the World T20 (and by extension the ODIs against the Windies), but he wasn't used as a front-line spinner.

In the 3 ODIs, he bowled 6, 3 and 1 over - in the latter two games England played 3 spinners (he actually bowled first, but was clearly the third guy). Tredwell and Parry bowled at least 9 overs when they played.

In the 6 T20s he played, he bowled 0, 0, 0*, 1, 2 and 1 overs - and was wicketless. (* - this was *that* NZ game where only 5.2 overs were bowled)

Therefore had England picked Stokes and needed a spinner who would bat between 8-11, I don't think they would have gone with Moeen.

I guess it's a case of 'we'll never know'!

[alfie]

Crossed with M@tt's post above...

I actually quite like the notion of using the West Indies Tests as the best time to trial a spinner. Or more than one. The likelihood of helpful conditions would be higher - and with all due respect the opposition perhaps a little less unforgiving. I do fancy batting depth against SA.

And I understand the sense of irony expressed by rich that the all rounders are apparently complicating selection rather than helping : but I think that is actually something of an illusion. (If there were no Stokes , England would still be wresting with the choice of picking Moeen at six or trying to find another bowler who could extend the batting order ...if no Moeen , then I suspect the choice of a spinner might still be partly dependent on his batting ability . ) It might make for more - difficult - choices ; but surely that's better than being forced into fielding a completely unbalanced out fit ?
The team in India was unbalanced. But that was down to the failure of several batting and bowling options rather than having too many all rounders , was it not ?

Edit - now I see M@tt has made another post ...to clarify , I'm referring to his earlier post.

I guess I type too slowly