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Originally Posted by midge5

However, what would other people do about Flintoff?
His ankle seems a bit too dodgy to put much reliance on him as a bowler, while his batting form in recent times has been abymsal, not a patch on those who are already in the team. It would seem immensely unfair to drop Cook/Bell/Collingwood for him. Other than that the batting lineup to me actually seems quite strong.

We have better batsmen so he should only be brought in at the moment instead of a bowler.
If he's not fit enough to bowl then he shouldn't play.

For wicket keeper, I would have stuck with Reed. He was crap in the odi over in Australia but then so were most of the rest of the team. He did quite well against Pakistan and in the tests against the Aussies. After the other day though Prior has probably done enough to keept he jersey for a while and all the changing wasn't really particularly useful anyway so he should keep it for now.

Definately keep with Prior. Read and Jones have missed their chances. Nixon was what we needed when he played but isn't going to be around long. Prior impressed me in the first test and should certainly play the rest of this series.

The bowling however...
Harmison it seems is still bowling shockingly at test level (I can't find it now but on one of the BBC commentaries it showed Harmison's career split into 10 test sections, and other than 2004 his average and number of wickets taken is actually extremely ordinary)
Hoggard, Broad, and Lewis are all injured while Jones isn't fit.
While Mahmood/Plunkett/Anderson are all too inconsistent to be considered international standard yet.

Hoggard is certainly our best, and most consistent, fast bowler over the last year.
We don't have any other consistent bowlers...
Flintoff when fit and Harmison when on form can both be deadly.
S Jones added to it (although his county season hasn't started very well) is potentially the best fast bowling attack in the world.
You've forgotten to mention Panesar however. You can't drop him for any match at the moment - he is another who will potentially be one of the best spinners in the world - certainly better than any English spinner in my memory.

Plunkett, Mahmood and Anderson are all back-up bowlers. I think I'd choose Mahmood over the others at the moment playing 2 or all 3 of them fills me with dread though

So I'm going to take the easy option and say I don't really know who I would play at the moment. The ones I would are all injured and I don't follow enough county cricket to know who is good or not, though David Harrison at Glamorgan has looked quite good in a shit team over recent years.

Sidebottom has certainly been quite good for Notts though along with a couple of other bowlers this season - Shreck for one.

Kabir Ali has also been overlooked.

The interesting part for me will be though when Trescothick returns. His form for Somerset this year has been really good, and in one day cricket especially he provides a much more attacking option to open with. Stick to test matches though, personally I would drop Vaughan (his form his just way too bad to justify his place at the moment, no matter how good his captaincy is, but I don't think that Strauss isn't that much worse).

I can't see Tresco coming back into the side to be honest. Unless there is a couple of injuries or severe loss of form.
Vaughan and Strauss aren't exactly in the best form but while we're batting well I don't see any of the top order being dropped.
I would certainly play Vaughan at 3 though instead of opening. Cook has done well opening and Strauss always has the potnetial for big runs.