A captain is seldom more powerful in selection than before his first Test in charge. On Saturday morning Joe Root’s squad for the opening Test against South Africa, which starts at Lord’s on Thursday, will be revealed and it will surely have the imprint of the new leader.
Root’s thoughts about the batting order, most specifically where he should bat, will be unusually relevant. There has been the suggestion he may revert to No4 now he is captain but since England’s last Test in Chennai in December such a move has become increasingly inconvenient.
At the end of that series against India there was the assumption Keaton Jennings and Haseeb Hameed might be alongside Alastair Cook to form an adhesive rather than adventurous top three. Now Hameed should not be selected. He has had a poor start to the season with Lancashire; he has yet to post a half-century; there have been four ducks and he averages just over 15.
Hameed has a golden future but it would be irresponsible to pick him. Young players need to be in good form when plunged into the Test arena. So Jennings seems assured of a place after an adequate start to his season and Mark Stoneman, once of Durham, now of Surrey, also becomes a possibility at the top of the order, especially if Root insists on batting at No4. Middlesex’s Dawad Malan has clearly impressed Trevor Bayliss and is another option for the middle order.
However, Root is also likely to champion the selection of Gary Ballance – with good reason. Ballance has been the outstanding English-qualified batsman in domestic cricket this summer and is averaging 98. He has surely earned a recall after his nightmarish winter but it would not be a good idea to bat him at No3. Unless England pick a side top heavy with batting with Jennings and Stoneman in the team then Ballance’s inclusion would require Root to stay at No3 with his Yorkshire team-mate at four.
Next comes Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali, whose form and record should mean he does not bat lower than No7 in the Test team. The experiment of having Jos Buttler there as a specialist batsman, where he resided with some success in England’s last two Tests in India, cannot be continued.
England’s batting should be able to match South Africa but a less optimistic man than Root may be concerned about the bowling. The pace attack have quality and frailty in equal measure; the spinners available, by Bayliss’s admission, lack quality though I suppose they are reasonably fit. England’s fast bowlers are unlikely to get an advertising gig with Duracell.
Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood and Stokes are the likeliest quartet and they have all been battling injuries in the recent past. None is suitable for too much donkey work on a flat Lord’s pitch and they are as familiar with needles as a Cowes yachtsman.
The selectors will ensure there is at least one other able-bodied paceman in the squad. It is not obvious who that should be, which is usually a bad sign. Toby Roland-Jones, ruthlessly blunted at Chelmsford this week, has had a modest start to the season.
Liam Plunkett was not selected by Yorkshire for the recent match against Surrey – indeed he has not played a red-ball game for them this summer – and now he has finally found himself playing under Ballance’s captaincy as a replacement in the Lions team against South Africa at Worcester.
Recently Tom Curran has impressed – in T20 cricket – for England; his younger brother Sam is an exciting prospect, especially with Chris Woakes’ all-round skills being sidelined but that would be a premature selection. Steven Finn is not inspiring much confidence.
Nor are the spinners. Moeen is scoring runs rather than taking wickets. A second spinner at least merits a place in the squad for a venue like Lord’s. Adil Rashid seemed to be earmarked for that role when he was omitted from England’s T20 squad but since then he has been unceremoniously carted around Headingley by Kumar Sangakkara and co. It is a bit early for Mason Crane to be elevated but the enthusiasm expressed for the Hampshire wrist-spinner by Bayliss may not bode well for Rashid’s long-term red-ball aspirations.
