England Names Ashes Touring Team & Inc Panesar

Bluey Zarsoff

Active Member
England has named it's 17 man touring parting for the upcoming Ashes series:

1 Alastair Cook (Essex, capt),
2 Joe Root (Yorkshire),
3 Jonathan Trott (Warwickshire),
4 Kevin Pietersen (Surrey),
5 Ian Bell (Warwickshire),
6 Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire, wkt),
7 Matt Prior (Sussex, wkt),
8 Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire),
9 Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire),
10 James Anderson (Lancashire),
11 Steven Finn (Middlesex),
12 Boyd Rankin (Warwickshire),
13 Ben Stokes (Durham),
14 Monty Panesar (Essex),
15 Michael Carberry (Hampshire),
16 Gary Ballance (Yorkshire),
17 Chris Tremlett (Surrey).

The big surprise has to be Monty Panesar after his recent behaviour. However, the spin cupboard didn't offer too many other options.
 
The ECB should apologise to all headline writers for leaving out Onions. Jokes aside, he himself said he was gutted to have missed the call, and he should really feel hard done by. It's a pity there wasn't room for him, but you can make a case for there being one too many tall paceman (Broad, Finn, Rankin, Tremlett). If Anderson gets injured while on tour, the versatility of their bowling attack takes a massive hit.
 
Like Monty but think he might struggle over here, still he's probably 100X better than that pie chucker that the Poms played in the 5th Test.
 
A few surprises there for me. Carberry, Ballance and Stokes I didn't see coming. Monty is still the second best spinner in England by a long-shot. He'd walk into South Africa's side and probably the West Indies' as well.
 
Looks like a fairly good squad, can anyone tell me more about the following players? Never heard of them...

"Boyd Rankin (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Michael Carberry (Hampshire), Gary Ballance (Yorkshire)."
 
Looks like a fairly good squad, can anyone tell me more about the following players? Never heard of them...

"Boyd Rankin (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Michael Carberry (Hampshire), Gary Ballance (Yorkshire)."


Boyd Rankin is a very tall Irish fast bowler. Ben Stokes is a New Zealand born bowling all rounder. Someone else should tell you about the other two.
 
Which Pie Chucker - Swanne? I've never liked Swanne myself and I now think he's had his day, looks crap against your blokes at the moment, I reckon whatever he did to his arm/shoulder last year has either under-mined his confidence or the op he's had hasn't worked 100%. It would be good to see Panesar given a chance.
 
Doesn't help that Australia is historically often a graveyard for offies, although Lyon seems to be going alright, he gets a ridiculous amount of criticism from peanuts when his Test record is actually very reasonable.
 
Which Pie Chucker - Swanne? I've never liked Swanne myself and I now think he's had his day, looks crap against your blokes at the moment, I reckon whatever he did to his arm/shoulder last year has either under-mined his confidence or the op he's had hasn't worked 100%. It would be good to see Panesar given a chance.
Pretty sure he means Kerrigan unless you were taking a shot at Swann.

I don't like the guy either but a lot of the top players are pretty classless on the field, a mate of mine played against MacGill in Aussie club cricket and he said he nearly drowned in the amount of bile MacGill spat his way while he was batting.

Leaving his personality aside I think he's suffering from the lack of fear Oz have of his bowling, all bowlers need some level of apprehension from the batsmen or even the good deliveries get spanked (e.g. Warne in India, Murali in Oz etc.).

Panesar is good on the right decks, he still struggles to adapt his game to the conditions too frequently for a guy of his (now) experience. The fact that he was out bowled by Bruce Martin in NZ on roads should be embarassing for a man of Panesar's talent.
 
Looks like a fairly good squad, can anyone tell me more about the following players? Never heard of them...

"Boyd Rankin (Warwickshire), Ben Stokes (Durham), Michael Carberry (Hampshire), Gary Ballance (Yorkshire)."

Balance is a Zimbabwean.
 
Pretty sure he means Kerrigan unless you were taking a shot at Swann.

I don't like the guy either but a lot of the top players are pretty classless on the field, a mate of mine played against MacGill in Aussie club cricket and he said he nearly drowned in the amount of bile MacGill spat his way while he was batting.

Leaving his personality aside I think he's suffering from the lack of fear Oz have of his bowling, all bowlers need some level of apprehension from the batsmen or even the good deliveries get spanked (e.g. Warne in India, Murali in Oz etc.).

Panesar is good on the right decks, he still struggles to adapt his game to the conditions too frequently for a guy of his (now) experience. The fact that he was out bowled by Bruce Martin in NZ on roads should be embarassing for a man of Panesar's talent.


I agree somewhat actually. I've never rated Swann that highly. I think he had a couple of golden years a few years back but now he's just a good spinner and not one of the best in the world. I've seen him get tonked heaps of times and he doesn't seem to pick up loads of wickets anymore.
 
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Go Monty!
 
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