England’s star all-rounder is not on the plane and is not going to play – and given he is irreplaceable the management needs to focus on a Plan B with the first Ashes Test under a month awayThere is less than a month to go before England step out into the cauldron of the Gabba to begin their Ashes defence and with the squad touching down in Australia this weekend, you have to wonder whether now would be a sensible time to fully pen a line through the name of Ben Stokes.Ever since Stokes was arrested in Bristol at the end of September the England and Wales Cricket Board has kept his Ashes place open. Yes he is currently unavailable...
England put their trust in a group who know each other but they are light on openers and must also hope their talisman’s right hand heals in timeWhen the selection of Ben Stokes for the Ashes tour becomes headline news, something’s up. At the moment we are assuming – no more than that – Stokes will be available for the start of it. Sadly that depends on the investigations of the Avon and Somerset police and the state of his right hand. Related: Ben Stokes named in Ashes squad despite broken finger and arrest Related: England chase 357 to beat West Indies: fourth ODI – live! Continue reading...
England are going to be casting for Ashes roles during their warm-up matches, which is a little close to opening night to be running auditions, but there is a simple solutionSir Gubby Allen was not, in the delicate phrase of one of his biographers, a “naturally penitent man”. Allen, England captain and MCC president, was also the chair of selectors between 1955 and 1962. It was Allen who persuaded Peter May to recall Cyril Washbrook to play against Australia at Headingley in 1956. Washbrook was 41, and hadn’t played a Test in so long that he was serving as one of the selectors himself. “The press went to town,” Allen wrote, but Washbrook made 98, and England won. As Allen...
The selectors pick their touring party to Australia this week, a task made tougher by losses of fitness and form among key contendersThe selectors meet and decide their Ashes squad this week – the names of England’s tourists will be announced at 10am on Wednesday – and maybe they deserve some sympathy. Their task is tricky and familiar to anyone who has agonised for hours over a jigsaw puzzle only to discover that there are some key pieces missing.Those selectors have already been in the firing line from Durham’s chairman, Sir Ian Botham, who is enraged by the way so many of his county’s talented cricketers are heading south in pursuit of greener, First Division pastures. Botham has hinted that...
The England captain’s carefully plotted rise is a reflection of the ECB’s central planning but cricket’s fragmentation into different leagues and franchises may bring that era to a closeWhen he was 15 Joe Root drew a sketch of a cricket stadium and wrote on it, “today was the day I realised I would become a world-class batsman”. He still has that picture. Presumably he keeps it somewhere special, only bringing it out now and then, maybe when he’s doing an interview.You may have read the novel A Confederacy Of Dunces, in which John Kennedy Toole’s furiously hopeless anti-hero Ignatius J Reilly spends some of his spare time going to the cheesiest, schmaltziest romantic movie matinees in downtown New Orleans in...