Combined Ashes squad

[Cooldude]

Why pick Watson? He'd just end up running out Cook the man of the series

Strauss all the way

 

[bladder]

Cook
Watson
Trott
Pieterson
Hussey
Bell
Prior
Swann
Bresnan
Anderson
Tremlett


good shout

 

[bladder]

ps, goodnight from bristol, itll be nice to get to sleep at a normal time

gday lads

 

[Plugger35]

Why pick Watson? He'd just end up running out Cook the man of the series

Strauss all the way

Although Watson may have made more runs and had a better average than Strauss you would have to take marks off for the run outs he was involved in.

The run out in Adelaide may have been the turning point in the series and the ones in the 2nd innings in Melbourne and Sydney started the collapse that led to innings defeats.

 

[Sydneyfan]

Strauss (c)
Cook
Trott
Pietersen
Bell
Hussey
Prior
Swann
Bresnan
Anderson
Tremlett

12th Man: Watson

I went for Strauss over Watson as Strauss has shown great leadership, and whilst he has faced less challenging opposition, he hasn't been a potential liability to his batting partner. Watson gets 12th Man ahead of Finn however because he had a solid series despite not scoring a ton and was handy with the ball as well. The other tough call was Prior over Haddin, despite Haddin having the better average I think Prior eclipsed him in Sydney with his ton and more solid wicketkeeping.

 

[Vader]

I'd have Haddin ahead of Prior.

Both made one century, but Haddin's was essentially a match saving innings, whilst Prior's was basically in junk time.

Haddin had three 50s to go along with it. I think the bye statistic doesn't tell the real story.

The byes don't help, but its the mountain of runs made by players who had been dropped by Haddin which really condemn him. I'd love to know whether he came out on the positive side of the ledger over the whole series, whether the runs he made balanced the runs made by opposition players after he'd dropped them.

Put simply, there's not a lot between them in the batting stakes - but Prior is a much better wicketkeeper.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

S. Watson
A. Cook (c)
J. Trott
K. Pietersen
M. Hussey (vc)
I. Bell
B. Haddin (+)
T. Bresnan
G. Swann
C. Tremlett
J. Anderson
12th - P. Siddle

Haddin gets selected in my team because of when he made his runs as opposed to Prior. Haddin came to the crease in each innings with the score under 170/180, constantly under pressure. Prior, to the credit of the English top order, was able to come in and play his natural game without any scoreboard pressure of for a majority of his innings.

Watson just ahead of Strauss, who I thought was very unconvincing for most of the series. The guy was a whisker away from starting the series with 1 run from 3 innings, and I always felt we were a chance while he was at the crease. The same can be said for Watson, but in general he gave us consistently good starts and while he didn't go on with it, he is partnered with Cook in this team so it isn't such an issue!

 

[Gazza_11]

The byes don't help, but its the mountain of runs made by players who had been dropped by Haddin which really condemn him. I'd love to know whether he came out on the positive side of the ledger over the whole series, whether the runs he made balanced the runs made by opposition players after he'd dropped them.

Put simply, there's not a lot between them in the batting stakes - but Prior is a much better wicketkeeper.

If I recall correctly Haddin took his keeping to a whole new level last summer, and took some absolutely phenomenal catches whilst being extremely consistent.

Wonder what happened. Could the injury have bothered his technique? Doesn't look like it's had any effect on his batting.