Nixon's Not The One

Immediately after the New Zealand debacle, a friend of mine posed a question that has bugged me to such an extent that I felt moved to post about it: -

Has Paul Nixon been picked for his sledging ability alone?

It seems an outlandish suggestion, and an outrageous slur on our wonderful team of selectors, but when you start rationalising it, it starts to make sense. As a batsman he’s no better than Chris Read, and nowhere near as good as ‘Taffy’ Jones, and in terms of actual keeping ability he’s ordinary at best. If they’d wanted a specialist one-day keeper, Matt Prior would surely have been a better bet – and could have filled the ‘pinch hitter’ role at the top of the order leaving Mal Loye free to come in further down the order.

So have things really descended so far that we’re now picking people based purely on their ability to get up the opposition’s noses? A kind of ‘Sinex Strategy’…

If it is, it has no logic whatsoever – although that hasn’t stopped the English selectors before. It’s an idea that might work if you’re playing against Cheltenham Ladies College – but is hardly going to have any tangible impact against Australia, a country where they learn to sledge before learning to talk.

If that is now the criteria let’s not be half-arsed about it – let’s go the whole hog and pick an entire team of acknowledged masters of annoyance, backchat and irritation – an ‘All Gobby XI’ if you will: -

Neil Warnock
Jade Goody
Lilly Allen
Jim Davidson
Vera Duckworth
Gordon Ramsey
Rev Ian Paisley
Bono
Dennis Skinner
Liam Gallagher
Richard Littlejohn

I reckon that side would give Ponting and his men a real run for their money.

And, failing that, could at least provide a more challenging set of interviews for Athers than Freddie, with his plaintive claims of 'spirit' and 'pride'.