Saturday, July 21, 2007

Everybody Hurts

Back at the beginning of April I posted this;

Assuming Simon Jones makes a full recovery, the England selectors will have an interesting problem putting a bowling attack together from this summer.

With Freddie presumably a 'given' for one of the four fast bowling places, you're effectively picking the remaining three from the following seven names: -

Harmison
Hoggard
Mahmood
Plunkett
Anderson
Jones
Broad

A nice problem to have I'd suggest.


Updating that list -

Harmison - Injured
Hoggard - Injured
Mahmood - Injured
Plunkett - Learning how to bowl
Anderson - Back from injury - now leading the attack
Jones - On his way back from injury
Broad - Close but (currently) no cigar

Plus -

Freddie - On his way back from injury (again)
Sidebottom - Pleasant surprise
Tremlett - Picked ahead of Broad, but surely not a long term option

Out of ten bowlers on that list, three are currently injured, two are on their way back from injury and one (Anderson) has had extensive injury problems since making his debut.

Now I know that it's a fine balance between keeping players fit and giving them enough bowling to maintain their form between test apperances, but that's a heck of a lot of injuries in anyone's language.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not sure that the England camp would agree with you about Tremlett...