England have pulled out a few surprises in their squad for the WT20 in Bangladesh which starts on 23rd March.
The squad is
Charlotte Edwards (captain) (Kent)
Tammy Beaumont (Kent)
Kate Cross (Lancashire)
Jodie Dibble (Devon)
Georgia Elwiss (Sussex)
Lydia Greenway (Kent)
Rebecca Grundy (Warwickshire)
Jenny Gunn (Nottinghamshire)
Danielle Hazell (Yorkshire)
Amy Jones (Warwickshire)
Heather Knight (Berkshire)
Natalie Sciver (Surrey)
Anya Shrubsole (Somerset)
Sarah Taylor (Sussex)
Fran Wilson (Somerset)
Missing out are the injured Laura Marsh, Katherine Brunt and Tash Farrant, along with Danielle Wyatt and Lauren Winfield, who were both in the Ashes squad, but have been dropped.
Young left arm spinners Rebecca Grundy (23) and Jodie Dibble (19) have been selected ahead of Wyatt, who has been having a rough time with the ball of late. Interestingly Grundy, who is a member of the England Women's Performance Squad, did not make the recent Academy tour of Sri Lanka due to injury, but Academy girl Dibble did, and she took full advantage of the conditions in Sri Lanka, taking nine wickets in six games. She gets good loop and has a good cricketing brain. She too has had her injury problems - in fact she used to be a pace bowler until she suffered a shoulder injury about three years ago.
On the batting front Tammy Beaumont is rewarded for her efforts with the bat in Sri Lanka as captain of the Academy team, plus the fact that she already has nearly 50 appearances for England under her belt. It is true that she held the Academy batting together in Sri Lanka, but her major runs were scored in the 50 over format against less than formidable bowling. Fran Wilson (22) also gets the call back into the fray, having last played for England back in 2011. She too was in Sri Lanka and is a busy batsman at the crease and uses her feet well to the spinners. She is also an excellent fielder.
Reading between the lines of the ECB press release (http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/articles/womens-world-t20-squad-named) England are not talking their chances of winning the WT20 up too much with this squad. Lots of talk of experience and looking forward to seeing how they can perform. They are in a tough group and T20 is a very unforgiving format. The senior players are going to need to be at their best. Interesting times indeed.
MD
18/II/14
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So the equation for this selection boiled down to squeezing a 16 player Ashes squad into a 15 player WC squad. That became easier when Brindle retired. That became harder when two of the players (Brunt and Farrant) are unavailable due to injury. Bravely the selectors have effectively replaced these 2 quickies with 2 uncapped spinners (Grundy and Dibble) – surely a logical line to take given the WC is being played in the sub-continent (and Marsh (injured) and Colvin (retired) are not available). That these 2 uncapped spinners have been chosen ahead of Wyatt suggests the selectors have a diminished faith in Wyatt’s bowling. Wyatt’s batting hasn’t got her in ahead of Beaumont or Wilson either. If Wyatt is feeling gutted to be dropped then Winfield must be fuming. Given hardly any chance in Australia, she has, as far as I can tell, done nothing wrong. I’d not only have her in the WC squad but I’d have her opening in T20.
ReplyDeleteI’m still looking for the pitch hitter who is capable of belting 24 off 12 balls towards the end of the innings (yes I know Susie Rowe can do this but for some reason she is out of favour or given up on being picked). I don’t see such a player in this squad and certainly not at 6, 7 or 8 which is where they are most likely to be required. Certainly places a lot of pressure on the top 5 to be past 100 by the 15th over.