Onwards and Downwards?

      The farce is over.  Now time to move on to one the greatest sporting rivalries, forget Liverpool versus Manchester United and England versus Germany in Football, forget any other sporting rivals.  England are getting ready to travel to Australia to compete for 'The Ashes',  Played since 1882 the series is named after a satirical obituary published in 1882 after a match at The Oval, in which Australia beat England on an English ground for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.  The trophy urn is reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump.  Today England annouced their squad and the lucky players who have won much-coveted places in the Ashes squad to tour Australia this winter.


       The full squad is :-
Andrew Strauss (captain, Middlesex), Alastair Cook (vice-captain, Essex), James Anderson (Lancashire), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire), Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire), Paul Collingwood (Durham), Steven Davies (wk, Surrey), Steven Finn (Middlesex), Eoin Morgan (Middlesex), Monty Panesar (Sussex), Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire), Matt Prior (wk, Sussex), Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire), Chris Tremlett (Surrey), Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire).

      The tour doesn't start until the 5th Novmember but the selectors usually annouce the selection early but this year I think they annouced it even earlier to draw some attention away from the Pakistan tour just finished.
In an England 16 with few surprises the 11 men who played in the last Test at Lord's against Pakistan are retained.  They are joined by Sussex spinner Panesar, Surrey fast bowler Tremlett with another Surrey man, Steven Davies, taking the reserve wicketkeeping spot.  Fit-again Warwickshire batsman Ian Bell and Yorkshire seamer Tim Bresnan make up the party to defend the Ashes.

      This squad on the whole is a very strong one but so was the one that went to Australia in 2006/2007.  Complacency won't be an issue this time though as England hopefully would of learned from the humiliating
5-0 whitewash.  But the inclusion of the previously out of favour Monty Panesar and the out of form Kevin Pietersen and the exclusion of Ajmal Shahzad, Adil Rashid and Ravi Bopara are the talking points.

      Panesar has played 39 Tests for England taking 126 wickets at an average of 34.37 but he hasn't played for England since he was selected for the first Test of the 2009 Ashes series.  Adil Rashid has had some excellent domestic form throughout the year across all competitions and his performances were good enough for him to finish second in the Professional Cricketers' Association rankings. Rashid will be disappointed that Panesar has got a place instead of him and in my opinion it is a bad decision.

      While Ajmal Shahzad is a rapidly improving fast bowler who made his Test debut at Old Trafford in May against Bangladesh. At 6ft 7ins, Tremlett's ability to generate steep bounce from a length makes the former Hampshire star suited to Australian wickets.  So the inclusion of Tremlett looks like a good one to me.

      Finally Kevin Pietersen's inclusion is basically a gamble when on form he is one the best players in the world but at the moment he isn't their.  He does usually come good when England need him so I expect the same this winter down under.