Squad for our opening one-day game tomorrow is Carberry, Vince, Adams, Wheater, Gatting, Terry, Smith, Dawson, Berg, Arafat, Wood, Briggs, Crane
I expected us to go with Arafat over Bird as our overseas player, but it's a shame that Fidel has yet to return. It's been a week now since his last CPL match.
I guess from that squad, I'd personally go with Carbery, Vince, Adams, Wheater, Terry, Dawson, Smith, Berg, Wood, Arafat, Briggs. I'm not sure that we'll need four spin options, so Crane misses out for me. Dawson is hardly a poor limited overs spinner, and the depth he adds to the batting could be important. Especially if we're talking scores of 300 being just par. And Terry did ok in one-day cricket last season (a couple of 50s, I recall), so he gets the nod over Gatting. Sadly it sounds like Slug will miss most, if not all, of the group games. Hopefully Shah might play a game or two in the lead up to the t20 QF, just to avoid him going into that game cold (he went into t20 finals day last season having come straight off the beach, and safe to say his flight wasn't exactly worth it).
Fidel to replace Berg in my chosen XI, when he does return. I look at him as a wicket-taking option, possibly our biggest wicket-taking option, and it's ben shown on a regular basis over the past six months how important wicket-takers are in modern day one-day cricket (and with these latest new regulations, which help the bowlers, I still think wicket-takers will be vital - especially when bowling first. Bowling second, you've got the help of scoreboard pressure, if the batters have done the job).