The 'Summer' of Cricket thread

Maybe we need to begin a 'winter of cricket' thread but ....

England test squad for India named in an hour ... It looks like ....

Joe Root and Nick Compton will be named in it. Also Monty Panesar will miss out. Monty's ommision is an odd one as it must be down to the lack of trust in his fielding as he is by a country mile the 2nd best spinner in the country. So it appears in the test series Swann will be back up by a bit of left arm twirl from Samit Patel with Tredwell in reserve.

..........................................................................

Also T20 world cup starts tomorrow will about as open a field as I can remember.

As much as I want India to win the bowling is dross so the batting against most decents sides will have to make in excess of 180 just to be in the game.

Pakistan are the other way around. Great bowling especially Ajmal but will they make enough runs?

I do like Sri Lanka especially with Malinga.

West Indies are my wildcard. With Gayle and Pollard they xcould turn a game in seconds but dont fancy the bowling much.

England as defending champions .... Good unit. Much will depend on how Morgan/Buttler/Bairstow play the spinners during the middle/late overs.

I think the Aussies have no hope (So lump on them)

Saffers are good, but I cant bring myself to back them!

Also Englands opener is on Friday v Afghanistan. They aint bad. The batting is dodgy especially against extreme pace but they have a decent bowling attack with a mix of slow bowlers potentially suited to the Sri Lankan pitches. Either way they are a great story and I expect them to be better than Bangladesh in most formats in due course.