Quote:
Originally Posted by ashley12
two spinners at the scg is almost mandatory.... does pieterson still bowl a decent % of the time?
Not if you haven't got two who are good enough. If you pick a 2nd spinner simply because "it's mandatory on such-and-such a ground" then you might be picking someone who's not good enough for Test cricket, leaving you with 10 men and a passenger. God knows we've done that often enough in the past, picking the the likes of Peter Such, Ronnie Irani, Chris Lewis, Mark Ealham and far too many others.
Pietersen, Trott, Bell and Collingwood can all turn their arm over at varying paces if needed to fill some overs. Trott has a 1st class 7-for.
As for spinners, I still can't work out how the hell anyone can seriously suggest taking Panesar. He's not that good as a spinner; OK, he can tweak it a bit and he's left handed, whic is a slightly unusual line, but he can't set a field, he can't vary his delivery speed, he doesn't flight it enough......
Add to that the fact that he would still bat #11 in most decent Saturday league teams and he still gets a cheer for performing a successful long barrier stop in the field and I can't really see the point.
I'd rather see Rashid going on the Lions tour and getting games; you don't learn much by carrying drinks and susbtitute fielding.