Opening up

Last Monday, I asked who should be England's No 6 for the forthcoming Test series against New Zealand and the answer, fairly conclusively, was that Paul Collingwood should stay in the job. Mark Ramprakash was your second favourite and Owais Shah your third. Few takers for Andrew Flintoff, who continues to look good with the ball and poor with the bat, or Ravi Bopara despite a run of form that has given him 499 runs in four completed innings for Essex.

This week, who should be England's opening pair? In the main this has been a settled area in recent years with Trescothick/Vaughan a successful pairing for 52 innings (averaging 52.35 runs together per stand), followed by Trescothick/Strauss for a similar period of time (average 48.76) and then Cook/Strauss and Cook/Vaughan (although oddly they have never tried Vaughan/Strauss).

Cook/Vaughan, the pairing over the winter, put on two hundred-partnerships in 12 innings together but the overall average is a slightly disappointing 44 given the opposition, while Cook/Strauss, a combination in 27 Test innings, averages 35.22 with no hundred partnerships.

One combination I imagine everyone has forgotten is Key/Vaughan, who had three innings together of 56, 67 and 28 against India in 2002. With Key back in the England development squad, might he be an option as an opener, rather than as first wicket down as he has generally been used? He made 178 not out today against the New Zealanders. There was also Bell/Strauss in one 2006 Test against India, where they made 52 and 9.

Who else would be in contention? Ed Joyce and Michael Carberry did well on the England Lions winter tour but with only 147 runs in five innings and 37 in four respectively this season they are hardly pushing their case, while those at the top of the early averages are surely too young (Mark Pettini) or too old (Mark Butcher) to be considered and in any case both, while former openers, are more at home lower down the order.

Have a vote, but if you do think it should be someone else, click on "comments" at the bottom of this post and let me know who I missed.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Comments

[Innocent Abroad]

Rob Key is captaining the Lions. Why not just swap him for Vaughan and see how he does?

(This comment is of course gratuitously offensive to Durham supporters. I'll pick on a different county next time.)

[Brian Leach]

Cook will "dig-in" and only hit the
loose balls. Good Man !!
Support from strauss & Key is O.K.
Strauss has "solid" technique.
Key needs more Patience
Move vaughn to No 6 He's no opener
and would be very useful lower down.

[Ram]

I am amazed when you create 'non-problems' into something gigantic! When you have a settled Top Six, you write about who could be the No.6! Now when you have Cook and Vaughan at the top and doing well(reasonably), you seem to have a problem. I hope it's not a case of filling up white space!!

[Rory ffoulkes]

Drop Cook? Are you stark raving mad?

Vaughan's lack of form is something of a concern

Vaughan is a fine, fine player and his cover-drive is one of the most blessed sights in cricket, but he made bugger-all runs in NZ and these days lets too much go through the gate or else edges balls that he really shouldn't be. If it's just that his technique that's slipped a little, then he can iron things out, but if judgement is the isue, that's worrying, because picking length and playing the right stroke to it has always been Vaughan's biggest strength. Aggers doesn't seem to think that moving to 3 would make much difference, but I'm not so sure. Admittedly, he's played the majority of his best cricket as an opener, but he's looked, of late, too uncertain a starter (no shame in it, as Ponting, Butcher and Lara will testify) to open the innings and maybe it's time he dropped to 3, and stayed there. Providing we trust Strauss to partner Cook, that is

[Andrew Woollatt]

This is one area England really need to fix and quickly if we are to contend at the top level. Australia have shown us how crucial a solid opening partership is and England seemingly haven't shown the same quality at the top of the order. Perhaps its time the selectors moved away from Cook, who is consistantly getting out in the same manner outside his off stump, and look at experimenting with some new talent. I'm not saying i have the answer for them but its not my place to do the selecting.

[Paul]

Rather than selecting the two individuals to open, it would seem more pertinent to select a pair. Cook and Strauss are two excellent candidates, but don't seem to gel as a partnership (too similar?)

[King Cricket]

Didn't bother selecting an opening partner for him.