England jump for Joyce
That makes no sense. You don't 'jump' for players. You select them. We'd change it, but we can't be bothered thinking of another title.
Sadly, England's selectors have selected Ed Joyce as Marcus Trescothick's replacement. We rate Ed Joyce highly, but at the end of the day, he's competing against Rob Key here. There's only one way we were going to go with that. The point's moot anyhow. Joyce is in. Owais Shah was also rejected, despite being the next in line when injuries took their toll in India earlier in the year.
We're a bit puzzled by the batting hierarchy at the minute, if Joyce is ahead of Shah and Key. We were trying to work it out and eventually decided that they'd plumped for Joyce on the basis of youth. We're not sure about this, because the next generation of England batsmen are pretty much playing already with Cook, Bell and Pietersen holding down regular spots. You can look too far ahead.
Then we checked ages. It turns out that Ed Joyce is the oldest of the three, followed by Shah and then Key (time's still on his side), so it has to be assumed that Ed Joyce is being selected on ability and nothing besides, which is how it should be, really. He certainly is a class batsman and we suppose that the selectors have given hints by repeatedly picking him in one-day squads.
He's still not Rob Key though. You can justify it of a fashion, but the fact is that it will take at least two further injuries to front-line batsmen for Rob Key to play a part in this series. Nobody should treat Rob Key this way. NOBODY.
Sadly, England's selectors have selected Ed Joyce as Marcus Trescothick's replacement. We rate Ed Joyce highly, but at the end of the day, he's competing against Rob Key here. There's only one way we were going to go with that. The point's moot anyhow. Joyce is in. Owais Shah was also rejected, despite being the next in line when injuries took their toll in India earlier in the year.
We're a bit puzzled by the batting hierarchy at the minute, if Joyce is ahead of Shah and Key. We were trying to work it out and eventually decided that they'd plumped for Joyce on the basis of youth. We're not sure about this, because the next generation of England batsmen are pretty much playing already with Cook, Bell and Pietersen holding down regular spots. You can look too far ahead.
Then we checked ages. It turns out that Ed Joyce is the oldest of the three, followed by Shah and then Key (time's still on his side), so it has to be assumed that Ed Joyce is being selected on ability and nothing besides, which is how it should be, really. He certainly is a class batsman and we suppose that the selectors have given hints by repeatedly picking him in one-day squads.
He's still not Rob Key though. You can justify it of a fashion, but the fact is that it will take at least two further injuries to front-line batsmen for Rob Key to play a part in this series. Nobody should treat Rob Key this way. NOBODY.
