Thankyou to everyone who has shown an interest in helping with this years selection process. Before we can move on to the discussion of the team I need everyone's preferred XI including their two key players.

Please choose 11 players - 5 batsmen, a batting all-rounder, wicketkeeper, bowling all-rounder, 3 bowlers from the qualifiers I posted in this thread. Name two of those as your key players. The key players are the ones you consider most important to your side. The balance of the WAT team will be discussed once the key players have been posted.

Don't post your team on this thread as it could influence the other selectors. PM your team and key players to me. I will post them when I have everyone's teams. Thanks. I want to start the discussion no later than Thursday so if I haven't received your team by then you'll miss out.

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Administrator

Good point Andy. If selectors want to "push" their favoured players by emphasising their one-day form for the reason you gave fair enough but I don't think we need to provide a table of every players one-day statistics. Let's leave that in the domain of the individual selectors.

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Administrator

Mike... I need to put in a protest re: James Foster. He's 25 years old.. hasn't played for England since he was in nappies... and is not on the list of eligible players. His "run" in the side was winter 2001... 6 Tests... with just one, one-off call up later in 2002. That's all ancient history now... and you're holding it against a kid who should pretty much walk into the final XI of an England "prospects" side.

I've no objection to the "5 Test" rule... but think that in fairness to players in his position (and I think there are a fair few on the subcontinent: tried to soon, dumped, now ready for a comeback) it should be 5 Tests in the last 3-4 years and a maximum of (say) 10 or so Tests.

I think Rachel raises a valid point. Many players are tried in Test matches when they are very young. At a young age it is very difficult to retain a place in the team. Usually they aren't gven as many matches as 6 to prove themselves which is why I made that rule about more than 5 matches disqualifies a player. For example, Chris Read had 3 Test matches when he was 20 and was then tried again at 25. During this period he would still have qualified for the WAT team. James Foster, however, played all 7 Test matches from 21 to 22 years of age and I think that it's unfair to include that period in the qualification rules. Perhaps we can ammend the max 5 Test match rule by discounting any matches played below a certain age like 25.

So the rule would be: a player is disqualified if they have played more than 5 Test matches since their 25th birthday.

That is just my suggestion. Other suggestions welcome.

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Administrator

We do need to exclude those youngsters currently playing as first XI players in test sides: the likes of Fidel Edwards and Sami. To that end I would suggest:

Players should all be under 30 years of age and have not played more than 5 Tests in the previous 3 years

That would exclude even younger players who have been tried and discarded very recently.. which seems to me to be right: we want to showcase players who have not had a chance or whose last chance was long enough ago to be pretty irrelevent.

ps. Adding Foster to my squad :-)

pps. check out http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/engla...ry/220142.html

If it's not too late I'd like to submit my squad-team, here's my squad in no particular order:

OA Shah 15 1578 65.75 0 - 22 - 22 MIDDX 26
EC Joyce 15 1559 62.36 3 45.33 15 - 15 MIDDX 27
AGR Loudon 14 748 35.61 26 41.00 12 - 12 WARWICKS 25
MJ Prior 14 720 32.72 - - 40 1 41 SUSSEX 23
SA Newman 14 1179 49.12 0 - 12 - 12 SURREY 25
MH Yardy 15 1119 46.62 4 30.50 12 - 12 SUSSEX 24
CT Tremlett 11 219 24.33 46 26.78 3 - 3 HANTS 24
AD Mascarenhas 10 437 39.72 27 26.22 4 - 4 HANTS 27
ND Doshi 10 93 8.45 21 47.00 1 - 1 SURREY 26
GJ Muchall 16 754 32.78 0 - 5 - 5 DURHAM 22
AN Cook 15 1097 43.88 3 18.00 12 - 12 ESSEX 20
ID Blackwell 15 942 44.85 28 50.14 5 - 5 SOMERSET 27
RS Bopara 15 721 32.77 17 42.70 6 - 6 ESSEX 20
LE Plunkett 14 256 17.06 51 30.84 6 - 6 DURHAM 20
PD Collingwood 13 1103 55.15 21 31.90 15 - 15 DURHAM 29
MJ Wood 11 837 44.05 - - 4 - 4 SOMERSET 25
MJ Lumb 9 431 30.78 2 46.00 5 - 5 YORKS 25
M Davies 11 119 14.87 47 15.55 2 - 2 DURHAM 24
VS Solanki 11 510 30.00 0 - 8 - 8 WORCS 29
Kabir Ali 11 324 21.60 48 27.66 9 - 9 WORCS 24
TT Bresnan 14 302 20.13 47 32.00 4 - 4 YORKS 20
LD Sutton 15 763 33.17 - - 44 - 44 DERBY 28
DI Stevens 15 1215 50.62 17 36.82 12 - 12 KENT 29
TJ Murtagh 8 296 37.00 12 42.50 3 - 3 SURREY 24
R Clarke 12 754 44.35 16 39.43 16 - 16 SURREY 24
DJG Sales 15 1167 48.62 - - 20 - 20 NORTHANTS 27
JD Middlebrook 14 544 32.00 26 46.73 8 - 8 ESSEX 28
ET Smith 15 1185 42.32 - - 12 - 12 MIDDX 28
U Afzaal 15 983 40.95 1 69.00 8 - 8 NORTHANTS 28
RKJ Dawson 14 430 30.71 27 40.66 8 - 8 YORKS 25

Mike, I don't think 25 is very young, some players are tried earlier and could not hack Test cricket, and never did later.
Schofield a good example.
So if all Tests are disregarded before the age of 25, we run the risk of picking players like Schofield.

Just a thought.

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Ern

Can I just check, are we looking to pick the best XI who qualify at the moment or the XI players we feel are most likely to progress to be test regulars.

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Steven

I don't undertand your point, ern. Chris Schofield played two Tests in 2000 when he was 20. Therefore, he is still eligible for WAT selection under the current rules. He would also be eligible under Rachael's rule even if he had played 6 Tests in 2000-2001 because he hasn't played any Tests in the past three years.

The best XI who deserve a first chance or another chance to be tried in a Test match.

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Administrator

I'm only back from holiday today so I have had to rush this a bit. Here goes with my squad.

Batsman
Shah (Middlesex)
Joyce (Middlesex)
Newman (Surrey)
Yardy (Sussex)
Cook (Essex)
Moore (Worcestershire)
Wood (Somerset)
Hildreth (Somerset)
Sales (Northamptonshire)

Batting All-Rounders
Stevens (Kent)
Loudon (Warwickshire)
Blackwell (Somerset)
Collingwood (Durham) - Is he really eligible?
Gidman (Gloucestershire)
Clarke (Surrey)

Wicketkeepers
Sutton (Derbyshire)
Ashead (Gloucestershire)
Wallace (Glamorgan)

Bowling All-Rounders
Mascarenhas (Hampshire)
Swann (Nottinghamshire)

Bowlers
Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire)
Tremlett (Hampshire)
Plunkett (Durham)
Davies (Durham)
Bresnan (Yorkshire)
Cook (Kent)
Doshi (Surrey)
Panesar (Northamptonshire) - Not on the list but I think he has played enough games. http://www.cricketarchive.com/Archiv..._Averages.html
Masters (Leicestershire)
Kabir Ali (Worcestershire)

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Steven