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Filed under Ashes 2006

I still remember watching whole of England cricket team on the open top of a huge bus, waving to the croud with dummy Ashes cup in their hands...

Will the following bunch of 16 players be able to do the same.... it seems very unlikely. Specially when England selectors have selected only 6 professional batsmen and have only one all rounder to back them...

The England team.

Batsmen	Fast bowlers
Andrew Strauss (vc)	Liam Plunkett
Ian Bell	Steve Harmison
Kevin Pietersen	James Anderson
Paul Collingwood	Sajid Mehmood
Marcus Trescothick	Mathew Hoggard
Alaister Cook
All rounders
Andrew Flintoff (Capt)	Spinners
Chris Read (wk)	Monty Panesar
Geraint Jones (wk)	Ashley Giles

Notes :

Who will make the runs :

Although I have to say that each and every batsmen in above squad are well known and capable of making big scores, what is the backup plan for England. I am getting a feeling that they will be playing a combination of 5 batsmen, 1 bowling all rounder, one wicket keeping all rounder and 4 bowlers...

The toughest aspect in playing Australia in Australia is your batsmen should make runs for bowlers to bowl confidently. With only 6 batsmen in ranks, I think English selectors have made a mistake.

Who'll take the wickets :

There is one steady paceman - Mathew Hoggard, one really quicky/ackward fast bowler - Steve Harmison and then three other qickies who may get wickets here and there.

As a neutral spectator, what I am interested in is how Australian are going to play Monty Panesar. All Australian know when it comes to making stratergy against any bowler - is to attack him. But let me remind you that Monty Panesar is a very steady bowler with emmculate line and length. The tussle will be very interesting.

To me, Monty Panesar seems the first spinner in English squad. And he should get the nod first before Ashley Giles for the only reason that Monty has been playing cricket while Giles was nursing injury.

Why two Wicket Keepers :

Most probably England because England play four tour matches during their Ashes 2006 Iteneriary. This means 9 matches in all and England would like to rest their first wicket keeper - whoever be it, Chris read or Geraint Jones.

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