Most of you know I've been a lone supporter of Matt Prior as a future England keeper. I've chosen him in all my WAT Eng A teams including last year. Now he's in the 25 man squad for the summer cricket. So, let's not hear anymore of Foster, Davies and Sutton. This guy should finally be selected in a WAT team.

Mike, the WAT England A Team selectors took a different view in the majority, and the inclusion of a Sussex player in the England squad now managed by a former Sussex captain will not cause a great deal of transigence I think!

Foster has certainly been more deserving for a long time, so has Chris Read. Davies is a newcomer and Prior is ahead of him in that respect, but Prior has to up his game for international cricket and he knows it.

I think Prior is only in because of the Moores influence.I am prepared to give him a chance but i think Davies will be a better long term bet.

Well not quite, I have mentioned him more than once, example click here .

My final choice on that occasion (without real conviction) was Foster, I think I negotiated Prior away.

I am not against Prior being included in the full England squad, but what has he to offer that Read can't?, I think Nixon deserves to play in the one day side - so the Test spot should have been between Prior and Read IMO.

I believe that being Matt Prior has been selected for the England squad - he should if there is any justice walk into the WAT-A Team.

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Ern

What a swizz! The guy's old boss selects him for the England squad and its taken as some reflection of the relative merits of the keeping candidates.

Prior was an embarrasment in the ODI games he's played for England so far, and sure he may have improved since then but so have the other candidates (Jones aside).

Finally, even though Jones was selected for the England team THIS DID NOT mean that his space in that team did not come under scrutiny. If Matt Prior was outclassed by Zimbabwe how is he going to do against significantly better international teams??

Matt Prior will have "made" it when (and only when) he is as accomplished at the stumps as genuine glovemen like Russell and Read. My suspicion is that (rather like everyone from Stewart and Jones to Boucher and Gilchrist) he'll fail. I suspect that (rather like Nixon) he'll never reach a basic grade of international competence (let alone challenge the elite level).

The likelihood of Moores initiating this nonsense was flagged up this winter when Davies played as a specialist batsman and Prior kept wicket... and the only good thing that can be said right now is that with Moores at the helm of the national side... he's at least removed from the academy: perhaps we can now see genuine glovemen promoted to the development squad!

That said... most are struggling to get county contracts!

ps. Ern has most cause for concern: the non-selection of Foster can only be because the management remain wedded to playing the same players in both the Test and ODI arena... as Foster is by far the better Test batsman.

You know he's a poor keeper when he makes old Iron Gloves look good .

After watching Prior bat several times I dont even think he's that good a bat and he certainly isnt a good keeper, so why select him .

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Mark.

Ken Schofield's report into the state of English cricket is due to be delivered in a couple of weeks and it will be interesting to see what they think about favouritism influencing selections above commonsense. Moores seems to be displaying the kind of favouritism, as shown by Prior's selection, as Fletcher showed during the recent Ashes debacle. I'm not saying Prior doesn't deserve to be in the squad but I have no doubt that if the selection of the squad was by majority vote Prior wouldn't have enough supporters to get in ahead of Read, for example.

It really does seem that the Schofield report is likely to recommend that the coach has less say in squad selections. Whether that extends to the captain is another issue. England can only go forward if selections are taken away from both captain and coach as practced by the Australians.

Absolutely, county or any other form of bias must be taken out of selection. Prior failed to perform with the bat or gloves (when he did have them on) for England and has done nothing to merit selection above Read, Foster, Davies or even Geraint Jones. I wonder how many catches/stumpings Prior fluffs off Mushtaq's bowling every game for example? There must be quite a number.

Prior has only made it into the Performance squad. It is very unlikely that he will be picked for the 1st Test because Vaughan is a big fan of Nixon.