Ian J
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The squad for the first Test against the West Indies will be announced on Sunday. This will be the first team selected by Peter Moores and will be interesting as normally captain and coach have the final say but Michael Vaughan will be out injured.
Looking around at who's available and who's in form I can't really see that there will be many changes as no one is exactly setting the world alight in the early County Championship season but replacements will have to be found for Vaughan and Pietersen who are both out injured.
It would seem that the choice for captain is between Strauss and Colly and I would plump for the former as he's a known quantity and last time he did the job his batting actually improved.
Nixon is getting on a bit in cricketing terms but he's the man currently in the seat and he's one of the few players that didn't let the team down in the recent World Cup and I would retain him as wicket keeper.
Many would like to see Harmison dropped for letting us down recently but he's started the County season well and in my opinion leaving him out would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces.
I would also pick his county colleague Liam Plunkett as the final seamer as he has also started off the season well and outbowled his more illustrious team mate in the current game against Kent.
My 11 would be as follows with James Anderson as the standby bowler
Strauss
Cook
Bell
Collingwood
Bopara
Flintoff
Nixon
Plunkett
Hoggard
Harmison
Panesar
Looking around at who's available and who's in form I can't really see that there will be many changes as no one is exactly setting the world alight in the early County Championship season but replacements will have to be found for Vaughan and Pietersen who are both out injured.
It would seem that the choice for captain is between Strauss and Colly and I would plump for the former as he's a known quantity and last time he did the job his batting actually improved.
Nixon is getting on a bit in cricketing terms but he's the man currently in the seat and he's one of the few players that didn't let the team down in the recent World Cup and I would retain him as wicket keeper.
Many would like to see Harmison dropped for letting us down recently but he's started the County season well and in my opinion leaving him out would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces.
I would also pick his county colleague Liam Plunkett as the final seamer as he has also started off the season well and outbowled his more illustrious team mate in the current game against Kent.
My 11 would be as follows with James Anderson as the standby bowler
Strauss
Cook
Bell
Collingwood
Bopara
Flintoff
Nixon
Plunkett
Hoggard
Harmison
Panesar