It's fair to say that England have as much a problem of producing a good supply of emerging openers as they do spinners. Generally, England seem to have no problem producing good young seamers, wicketkeepers and middle-order bats. Our previous WAT openers were Jefferson, Hutton, Newman, Cook and Compton. Cook is the only one who has stepped up to Test level. Jefferson and Compton have recently been tried at A level but neither are producing consistent results as Cook did.

It's anyone's guess if the four players mentioned for consideration in this year's team will fair any better.

Neil Edwards (Sm) 23y 41FC 3c
Paul Horton (La) 25y 26FC 3c
Joe Denly (Kent,EngA) 21y 21FC 4c
Billy Godleman (Mx) 18y 16FC 1c

Three of them have played less than two full seasons. Neil Edwards has played more First-class matches than the other three but has only 3 centuries to his name. That return is simply not good enough when you consider Alastair Cook has 17 First-class centuries (including 6 at Test level) and he's only 22 years. Billy Godleman is simply too young and too inexperienced to even consider. That leaves Paul Horton and Joe Denly. If one of these players had to be dropped to make room for Rashid in the side I'd find it difficult to choose between the two. In any case, our side could be considerably weakened by dropping either player and using a makeshift opener like Shah just for the sake of squeezing another middle-order bat into the side.