Ashes tour: England content to shuffle the pack (29 October 1998)

29 October 1998

Ashes tour: England content to shuffle the pack

By Nelson Clare in Perth

ENGLAND are giving all 17 players in their Ashes tour party at least one game of the opening two in Western Australia.

There was a possibility that one of the seven batsmen chosen for the tour would miss out, allowing England to experiment with their attack in the build-up to the opening Test in Brisbane, starting on Nov 20.

The selection of all their front-line batsmen in the 12-man squad for this weekend's four-day match against Western Australia at the WACA ground in Perth - England play the second Test there on Nov 28 - suggested the selectors were not prepared to make the decision at such an early stage of the tour.

At least four batsmen, excluding the captain Alec Stewart, could assume their places were reasonably assured, because they were selected for the one-day match at Lilac Hill, against an ACB chairman's 11 which finished this morning, and the Western Australia match - openers Mark Butcher and Michael Atherton, John Crawley and Mark Ramprakash.

Nasser Hussain and Graham Thorpe have both been given a game apiece, as though requiring them to press their claims in the two remaining tour matches before the first Test, against South Australia in Adelaide on Nov 7 and Queensland in Cairns on Nov 13.

Their absence for the opening match, normally played in a festival atmosphere, was probably because England were wary about pushing Thorpe too soon after he missed most of last season with a back problem. Hussain missed training through illness yesterday.

Whatever England's reasons, the tour selection committee - Stewart, the manager Graham Gooch and the coach David Lloyd - have avoided tackling the issue until all the players in the party have become accustomed to the Australian conditions.

Stewart was selected as an opening batsman for the Lilac Hill match, with Warren Hegg offered an early opportunity to keep wicket in what was expected to be a tour of limited opportunities for him.

The opening selections probably indicate England's thinking for the second Test in Perth as Stewart has already hinted that the bowling line-up against Western Australia - Darren Gough, Dominic Cork, Robert Croft, Angus Fraser and Alan Mullally - could feature next month.

Justin Langer, who played for Middlesex last summer, has just returned from helping Australia claim their first Test series victory in Pakistan for 39 years, and he is to captain Western Australian against England this weekend. David Graveney, chairman of England's selectors, has admitted England's hectic one-day schedule this winter is causing "complications" in choosing players for the World Cup.

All the competing nations have to announce their 15-strong World Cup party on Feb 28 - nearly three months before the competition gets under way.

After nominating that squad Graveney and his panel of Mike Gatting and Graham Gooch are faced with having to select another group of players to defend the Sharjah Trophy in March.

The conditions they will face in Sharjah mean that different personnel will be required, when ideally England would by then like to keep and mould their World Cup squad together. Before then there is the one-day tournament against Australia and Sri Lanka in January and February.

Graveney, who returned to England yesterday from the Wills International Cup in Dhaka, said: "I admit there are complications in that after we announce our World Cup squad in February we then have to go to Sharjah in between.

"Anyone who has seen us play in the last 12 months will know that the wicket requirements can alter our team quite a bit from tournament to tournament.

"Certainly the requirements to play in Sharjah may not be the same requirements as needed for English wickets in May and June.

"For example, would Mike Atherton and Angus Fraser be able to show the same qualities that are required and that they bring on English wickets if they were picked for Sharjah?

"We have got to answer questions like whether we pick a squad to win in Australia in January and Sharjah in March, whether we pick a squad to win the World Cup or whether we pick something in between."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)