Selectors as a group seldom get any praise from supporters for there is almost always a local favourite or media driven campaign that undermines their work, but England’s selectors have got rather a lot right over the last few years.
A striking statistic is that four of England’s top seven scored centuries on their test debut, and two more made fifties, with Paul Collingwood the odd man out. This suggests two things: firstly that county cricket is an increasingly effective preparation for test cricket and secondly that players are being picked when they are ready rather than being thrust into the side on a whim.
The most recent successful debutant, Jonathan Trott, is a case in point. Once the experiment with Ravi Bopara at number three had failed (I didn’t say that they got everything right) popular opinion was, as so often, behind a recall for Mark Ramprakash, but the selectors stuck to their guns and went with Trott. The rest is history: he made a composed debut hundred and now, after eighteen tests, he is averaging over sixty.
It is not only the batsman, however. How many of us would have predicted that Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan would have played such an important role in the retention of the Ashes? When Graeme Swann was languishing in county cricket, deemed to be temperamentally unsuitable for the England side, how many would have selected him for the tour of India where he made his breakthrough? In Australia the decision to drop Steven Finn, the leading wicket taker on either side at that point, must have been a tough one but, once again, it was the right one for the team.
Of course, they are blessed by having a pretty deep talent pool to draw from, but they also seem to have got a handle on what is required from a test cricketer and have consistently selected players with the mental, as well as technical and physical, qualities that are needed. We’re all quick to criticise when we perceive them to have got things wrong (and I’m sure that there are still people out there who are convinced that Adil Rashid should be playing, or Mark Ramprakash, or whoever) but they deserve a lot of credit for their efforts over the last couple of years.
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