What you say about Anderson is fairish comment, but there are some if's.

Many is the time I have heard it said that he can't hack it at test level, well since he burst on to the international scene in 2003 he has been teaboy more times than he has played.

It's unbelievable that such conclusions are based on a test career spanning 20 test matches over nearly 5 years.

At 3 wickets a match it does not look that good, yet his 20 test were far from being consecative, he really needed a run in the side - so has you reap et al.

What I am saying is that the best side should be picked, and Anderson given a run, because there are with Flintoff and Simon Jones injured a lot of one paced bowlers to pick from.

Harmison
Hoggard
Anderson
Sidebottom

If these players are all fit, they IMO should be automatic selections for the rest of the tour, and then we can take stock of who and who has not played well in the spring.

To put Broad in the side now is a nothing move - England have nothing to gain, and Broad with just a few games left is on a hiding to nothing.

Use our fastest bowlers, + Hoggard and Sidebottom, drop Bopara for Shah - and use Collingwood and Bell as spell bowlers, and IMO that's about the best England can do with the players on offer.

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Ern

Ern

I hear what you're saying and I understand what you're saying, I simply don't agree on some of the points you've made although I'm happy to concede that it has been unfair to select drop select drop Anderson, but then has Anderson really put in the consistently good performances to warrant an extended run in the side? Not in my opinion, he's still too inconsistent and as I said in another post, you can afford to hide one bowler, but not two and that means (in my opinion) Anderson simply cannot play in the same side as Harmison if they're both producing variable performances, as they both have in the past.

Anderson is the archetypical 'curates egg' he really is. He possesses the capability of producing the ball of the match or even the series, the one he produced to bowl Ganguly in the India series was quite simply sublime perfection. He pitched it inline and it looked to all intents and purposes to be slanting away to the slips but at the last moment it straightened and took out off stump, the typical right arm swing bowlers ball to a left handed batsman, something that Hoggard has been doing for some time and picking up an awful lot of lbws for his efforts. The problem is, that kind of ball only ever comes along very rarely and inbetween he bowls a bunch of dross and to bowl that ball you need - swing, not something they're getting an awful lot of in Sri Lanka.

I don't see the point in changing Bopara for Shah, because all you're doing is strengthening the batting at the expense of the bowling, it's an extremely unwise and risky strategy to bump up the batting strength in the hope of getting a draw. If Sri Lanka can bowl out Englands top 1-6 batsmen fairly cheaply, I don't see one more specialist batsman making much difference. You can't win test matches without taking 20 wickets and England look a long way from taking 20 wickets a match at the moment - their best strategy by far is to pressurise the Sri Lankan batting into producing smaller totals or at least totals our numbers 1-6 can match or hopefully exceed. The last thing you want is to be chasing largish totals with Murali in the attack and he's shown time and time again his ability to run through sides on wearing pitches.

Their best strategy by far (and one that Fletcher used) is to strengthen the bowling and put their batsmen under pressure to produce smaller totals that are reachable by our own batsmen. If it's a low scoring game, Englands chances of success are much greater than if it's a high scoring game considering that Sri Lanka are the stronger side and playing at home.

I just don't understand the logic that says 7 specialist batsmen and a weakened bowling attack will win us the game when 6 specialist batsmen and a stronger bowling attack wont, we're not Australia and we don't have the likes of Warne or McGrath to take up the workload of two bowlers! Only Australia of recent times have been able to get away with 4 specialist bowlers (including McGrath and Warne) no allrounder and effectively 7 specialist batsmen.

England have done it, but only when Flintoff was unavailable and playing weaker sides at home where they can boss the game with their batting. They've never done it successfully in recent times against one of the stronger Test nations.

In my opinion, when Flintoff is unavailable, they should either play 1) 6 specialist batsmen (including keeper) and 5 specialist bowlers OR 2) If Collingwood is considered the 'allrounder' 6 specialist batsmen (inc keeper) 1 allrounder and 4 specialist bowlers.

If they get the attack balance right (by that I mean the chosen specialist bowlers bowling on form) then you can get away with Sidebottom, Panesar + 2 other seamers with Collingwood making up the allrounder/medium dibby dobber fill in bowler, but not a side comprising Sidebottom, Panesar, Hoggard and Anderson because that seam attack is far too single paced and samey.

Dump Bopara and replace him with another seamer (Anderson stays in for Hoggard) - Sidebottom, Anderson, Panesar and two out of Harmison, Broad and Tremlett. Depending on the pitch, they may want to bring in Swann, in which case it's a straight swop out for Bopara in my mind, plus one other seamer to replace Hoggard.

If we cast our minds back to the one big success England have had in recent times, the beating of Australia at home in the Ashes we never had any injury problems which allowed us to play our strongest side. Now look at those four seamers used - Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard and Jones - their bowling styles, methods and pace are all different, which presents new problems for batsmen each time one of them bowls, and keeps constant pressure on the batsmen at each end, which makes it perfectly possible for any one of those 4 to take a wicket due in a large way to the pressure being built at the other end. Now look at our current seamers, notice anything? Want to know why we're currently losing matches? There's your answer.

I have always advocated the use of five bowlers Scott, but this was easy to achieve when we had a fit and confident all-rounder in Flintoff.
His batting alone in 2004/05 made his bowling a bonus, even though his bowing is good enough to be called specialists.

We don't have the bowlers of 2005 sadly, and I think the selectors never took this into account when they selected the England touring teams for Australia 2006, nor Sri lanka 2007.

I was not swapping Bopara for Shah as a defensive move, as I have never advocated the use of an extra batsman - if the top six can't do it, then one more won't make any difference.

I just think that Shah is the better basman that Bopara, and that Bopara's bowling is not good enough to keep in the side on that score - on these wickets anyway.
I agree with both points, but being realistic Moores does not have the world beating seam attack that Fletcher had in 2004/05.

I would play the best four seamers we have, and that IMO is:-

Harmison
Hoggard
Anderson
Sidebottom + Swann/Panesar

I would add to that Swann, and hope that England could get a result on the back of varied bowling, rather than a one paced seam attack.

Some would say Panesar should play rather than Swann, fair enough but then the batting would be thinner with England's top order having to find some form, and get the runs specialist bat's are supposed to get.
This might seem risky - some will say stupid, but playing bowlers who can get wickets is Englands only chance of winning a game, and squaring the series.

I would hope that with playing attacking bowlers in Anderson and Harmison, along with the economical and wicket taking Hoggard, with Sidebottom for support plus a spinner - then England could at least put some pressure on Sri Lanka and maybe stop them posting huge totals.

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Ern

Hmm... I'm not a huge fan of the four-one combination of pace and spin- not when some of those bowlers are notoriously unreliable. I think Swann can play as the all-rounder at 6 or 7 in place of Bopara (I think his f-c average is in the 30s), Hoggard and Harmison can open, providing a bit of variety, with Sidebottom first change and Panesar as the spinner. This gives the attack a beautiful balance, with a right-arm swing bowler, a tall, right-arm fast seam bowler, a left-arm swing bowler, a left-arm finger-spinner and a right-arm finger-spinner. I don't think the batting would suffer too much, if at all, and I think that attack has the right combination of penetration and economy.

Plus, I have both Panesar and Swann in the CricInfo fantasy team, so I really want them both to play.

Same here. If you have five bowlers... two should be contrasting spinners (especially in Sri Lanka). What England really missed in the last Test was not quality... as not even Hoggard's quality and Murali's quality made much difference for long spells. What was missed was simply a passable off-spinner to get the stock ball going away from the right hander.

I prefer four bowlers to five... but in Sri Lanka even the 4-man attack should have contrasting spinners.