Squads announced for ICC Super Series against Australia

As promised last month, the ICC announced the test and one-day squads for the ICC Super Series in Australia later this year.

Not too many surprises in the list. The fast bowling resources available to the one-day and test captains are shockingly low. They need to pick, in all likelihood, three fast (or fast medium) bowlers from Harmison, Pathan, Akhtar, Naved-ul-Hasan, Pollock, Nel, Ntini & Vaas for the tests and Gough, Pathan, Akhtar, Naved-ul-Hasan, Ntini, Pollock & Vaas for the one-dayers. Not exactly a flattering bunch of options.

New Zealand seem too lightly represented with only Vettori & McCullum in the squads. Their awful form against Australia in the test matches and one-day games ensured that none of the batsmen were anywhere in the queue.

The fact that West Indies have contributed three players, all batsmen, is a surefire indicator that the current stock of West Indies quicks is absolutely crappy. The fearsome foursome of the 1980s would probably have done better than this lot, either when bowling left-handed or off 10 paces, or both!

Do watch out for riots and demonstrations in Bangladesh after the selectors refused to include any Bangladesh players in the list. Robert Mugabe will however point to a conspiracy by the UK to ensure that no Zimbabwe players were in the list either, Streak's comeback from being awol notwithstanding.

Mike Atherton, one of the selectors, writes about the problems they faced, of the technical & selection varieties. He also had to face the wrath of the English media.

Peter Roebuck also writes about the lack of quality pacemen to pick from.

The ICC is meanwhile defending it's decision to make the Super Series games official.