I think Collingwood had an outstanding county season and deserves a place in the WAT team on class and form. However, at Test level he is neither an outstanding bowler or batsman. Because of his hight and medium pace he will never be a threat as a Test bowler like Flintoff but if his batting improves he could become a regular someday, particularly if Pieterson moves up to 4. As far as the A team is concerned I think Collingwood should be selected as a batsman and backup bowler. I can't see him taking enough wickets to warrant bowling him as the 4th seamer. I'd prefer Mascarenhas as the 4th seamer.

The major problem I think we will have this year is deciding whether to field a specialist spinner. Keedy had a good season from limited opportunities but he is out of qualification. The form of the others was average and selecting one of them would leave out a form player. That's why I'd like the seamers to carry the attack with Loudon as the part-time spin option.

I don't think Panesar's form cold be classed as average. I think he has had a top season and if we are trying to pick a team that could one day step up and represent England he is the man.

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Steven

I didn't pick Collingwood as I consider him an international regular as both a ODI player and a Test squad player. I think A-team cricket would be a step down for him and would block the opportunity of up coming cricket.

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Steven

That's an interesting way of including a spin option Mike, and I would not be averse to the idea. However, does this not leave the batting somewhat light, with Collingwood included as a specialist batsman? One could argue that you end up with only 'four' specialist batsmen in Shah, Joyce, Cook and Newman - though I suppose the selection of Prior and Loudon gives you some batting depth.

On the basis that the England A team would play mostly in England or outside the sub-continent, and that these will 3 or 4 day first-class games and not 5 day Tests, I have not included a spin-bowling option. My reasoning was similar to yours - none of the specialist spinners have had a good enough season to warrant selection ahead of the seamers. An attack with four in-form seamers plus Collingwood as a part-time option should be good enough for most sides and most 'decent' surfaces.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Is there any other players who clocked up their 8th appearence in the last round of county games that we can consider?

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Steven

Maranello, I always advise not to pick wicketkeepers and all-rounders as key players because we can't decide on whether to have a specialist keeper or keeper-batsman until we know the strength of batting in the top order. Also, if our bowling is weak then we may need extra all-rounders to rotate the bowling a bit more. We need to sign-off on the top order batting and top three bowlers first and see where we stand with respect to other positions.

I'm surprised that 5 out of the 12 selectors went for a batsman behind the stumps (Prior) rather than a wicket keeper. The general trend of thought seems to be true wicket keepers should be selected.

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Steven

The four most popular choices for the top-order batting are Joyce, Shah, Cook and Collingwood, whilst Tremlett and Davies are the two popular bowling selections.

TPR, I see your point about Collingwood being a regular Test squad member, but he is not a Test regular by any means, and if Bell performs well, there may not be a Test opening for Collingwood for a while. As such, Collingwood should be in the WAT A team, which consists of those players who can potentially become good Test players in the future.

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

I generally favour specialist keepers; however, as I did not select a spinner, or a very quick bowler, I felt that Prior would be able to cope behind the stumps, and he brought in some good balance batting at 7.

The other wicket-keeping selections were Adshead (3 votes), Foster (2 votes) and Sutton (2 votes).

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A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes
Mark Twain

Maranello, looking at all the permutations thrown up by the selectors there are two schools of thought:

1. without a wicket-taking spinner you field a part-time spinner like Blackwell or Loudon and beef up your seam attack with a strong 3rd seamer. In this case, you could beef up your top order batting by dropping Collingwood or keep him as 5 if you think he can score 50's and 100's for you at this level.

2. with a wicket-taking spinner you can play Collingwood at 6 and beef up the batting with a good number 5. However, the spinners available aren't going to take many wickets so we would need to sacrifice a bowling all-rounder for another strike-bowler and get some part-time bowling from Collingwood.

I prefer the first option so we can field a bowling all-rounder who can make some valuable lower-order runs.

If you go with option 2. then you must leave out one of the in-form seamers. I think that would be grossly unfair to play Swann or Batty and leave out one of either Mascarenhas, Davies, Tremlett, Sidebottom, Plunkett, or Kabir Ali who all deserve a place ahead of those spinners.