England 408/9

Well not from England anyway!

Interesting I can imagine the team meeting;

'Well lads you know how we've been playing this format of cricket our way for a long time and in general we have been losing.  Well we've been looking at what teams who win more than us do and it's really quite different to the blueprint that was designed to win the 1992 Cricket World Cup.  So, um, how about we give that a bit of a crack.....'.  I mean for all the bulls**t about 'brand' and 'purpose' and 'aggression' that is essentially what they have done.  Sets up this series quite nicely now.  Rashid taking a few wickets is all interesting, if he can sustain it I think there is an Ashes spot open for him.

I think we need to have a serious rethink about the way we handle our spinners.  Our recent history is replete with spinners we bought in too early in their careers and either destroyed their confidence and wrote them off or burnt them out.  Surely the lesson to learn from Swann is that bringing a spinner into the side fairly late in the day is probably quite a good idea - it's a tough business.  You spend a lot of time figuring out your own game and also becoming mentally tough because there will be a lot of setbacks and bad days.  I think a lot of young spinners in past have done very well, never really come up against serious adversity and are suddenly exposed to that when they reach international level and they can't cope with it.  I think that's happened to Rashid early in his career.  It certainly happened to Chris Schofield (who was probably not that good anyway but we'll never really know because he was a shell after his England experience) and Simon Kerrigan.

With Monty it seems to have happened a bit later - but essentially he ended up being a bit found out and burnt out and it's provoked some kind of major existential crisis.  It's weird that his career is now framed as a failure - by any measure of English spinners if Monty was retire tomorrow (which sadly looks possible) his career would stand out as a major success.  We rarely produce anyone of that quality but he stands next to Swann which is unfortunate.  What we do produce in industrial quantities are bang average flat Jack type off spinners who are competitive, versatile, tough, chippy and go on forever at County Level but are not ever likely to win you Test Matches because despite appearance of being aggressive and brave they're actually quite cowardly bowlers.  Tredwell, Batty, Croft etc. 

The truth is for a spinner to be a match winner he has to be brave and allow himself to be vulnerable and that takes serious mental strength and probably a wider perspective on life.  The kind that you probably don't have at 21.  Rashid has had his breakdown with the game, nearly gave it up completely and has instead come back a much better and stronger player.  But England badly mishandled him originally in their desperation to find a magic spinner.

I think we have this issue of picking players who we want to be something that they aren't.  We wanted Rashid to be our Shane Warne originally, when he wasn't that we didn't give too much thought as to the kind of player he actually was and just kicked him to the curb.  Moen is similar - he is ultimately going to be dropped because he isn't the player that the ECB wished they had.  I think he's entitled to feel a bit pissed off about that.  Since he came into international cricket they've moved him around the order in all formats, they've decided they want him to be the number 1 spinner which he's never been at any stage in his career and he's probably going to wind up dropped from the side as a result.  That seems very tough to me.  Moen may have been an excellent secondary spinner and number 6 (and a finisher in the ODI game) if he'd been given the chance to develop in those roles.  Instead he's been asked to do too much with the ball and they've messed him around with the bat.  The overall lesson should surely be to let spinners develop their art and be open minded about when they will become the Test winner you want them to be.  Rashid has never quite developed into the consistent match winning leg spinner but he's probably the best attacking spinner we have so why not see how he goes.  I think their worry would be that if he gets shelled that's a lot of Overs the seamers are going to have to bowl.  But the same applies to Moen anyway and with Monty out of the picture there's not a clear defensive spinner out there either.

Yes - that's absolutely true and I think by promoting him to open they lost the chance of developing him into a World Class number 3 or 4 because it'll now be a mental block for him if he's moved again.

It is typical of England to plan their strategy around the idea that the number 8 needs to be a big contributor with the bat as much as with the ball.  It shows a total lack of faith in the top order to actually deliver the runs and let's be honest if Mitchell Johnson does blow away our top order he's unlikely to be too perturbed by the prospect of Stoke, Buttler and Ali coming in 6, 7, 8.  Just the reality.  The top order are still going to need to stand up to be counted irrespective of who is batting in those positions - it reeks of cowardice.  But I actually disagree - if Rashid does well in through the rest of the ODI's I think he'll be in the Test side.

Stay away, you bloody jinx !