Australia and England Champions Trophy squad news
Australia announced the squad for the ICC Champions Trophy on Monday. It includes the undisputed heavyweight cricketer of the world and excludes the Guinness record holder in the verbal diarrhea category.
As for England, they've successfully bargained for three extra days to decide on their team. What we do know right now is that Trescothick, who had a mysterious flu in India, will miss the tournament due to an "acquired gastrointestinal infection and stress-related illness". There's still doubt on which of Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison, Darren Gough and Ashley Giles will bother to turn up.
Update: Pakistan have announced their squad of 14 for the tournament as well. Given that Inzamam's case has still not yet been sorted out, it'll be interesting to see what happens if the ICC's hearing determines that Inzamam was guilty, of his team's ball tampering and/or bringing the game into disrepute. The rules don't allow boards to change their squads unless a player has sustained an injury after being named in the final 14.
Other squad announcements: India.
Labels: 2006 champions trophy, champions trophy, trescothick
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| I'm not entirely sure what benefity the extra three days will give England. They will most likely finish bottom of their group regardless.
Three extra days, at the end of which we'll know what England else will have to say other than "Hey we're only at half strength!"
By 
Jagadish (6 Sept 2006, 6:21:00 pm)
The squad of 30, from which they must select 14, contains the following (Gough and Trescothick apart):
JM Anderson
IR Bell
SCJ Broad
PD Collingwood
AN Cook
JWM Dalrymple
A Flintoff
AF Giles
SJ Harmison
J Lewis
KP Pietersen
LE Plunkett
CW Read
AJ Strauss
That's not going to rip up any trees, but it's nowhere near as bad as the bowling attack playing at present.
And, I meant to say, is actually pretty close to first-choice. Michael Vaughan is blatantly not one of England's best ODI players; Simon Jones is unlikely to play many ODIs due to the risk of injury.
As far as I can see, the only ones who England will "miss" are Steve Harmison (bowling avg 33, strike rate 40, econ rate 5 against teams other than Ireland, Bangladesh & Zimbabwe) and Ashley Giles (bowling avg 41, strike rate 55, econ rate 4.45). So its hardly a case where they're missing half their side and deserve sympathy. Broad is actually quite impressive, but he has a worrying tendency to bowl in his half of the pitch a lot of the time. With his height and action, he really should be looking at bowling fuller length. I didn't see him touch upwards of 85 mph, so dragging it short means he's going to be carted around. Sajid Mahmood on the other hand, touches upwards of 85 mph often. But his bowling is trash a lot of the time.
By Jagadish (7 Sept 2006, 11:12:00 am)
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