Who else are you picking instead? We’re hardly steeped in quality throughout the county game.
Well, it's like this.
Crawley and duckett have done enough to play. Neither are openers who can hold a wicket but they can swing and attack and get 30 or 40 or more if it works.
Pope had one big innings.
Root needs to be given a serious talking to as he needs to score singles and park the stupid stuff, he was never that good v spin anyway.
Brook is not there but bairstow is, why?
Stokes has to get back to work, if he's not an all rounder then he has to improve his batting. Harsh but its reality that if he can't bowl he has to deliver with the bat. He's done ok but nothing major and not consistently.
That's 6 batters.
Then there's the age old wicket keeper conundrum. Flakes has the gloves but the likes of bairstow and formerly good butter are selected to bat. In truth form is a massive issue.
The reality with the ball is England have two untried spinners who have not been back at home so have to learn. It's the usual England thing of 5 seamers and part time spin disease.
Anderson is shot. If you can't get 15 to 20 overs out of a medium pace seamer and he can't bat then all the former glories in the world won't matter if a batsman stands there and sees off the 4 or 5 overs he has in the tank.
Wood is similar, massive pace, great heart, zero stamina.
Woakes did alright for the ashes but is a bit of a crock too. Robinson is a crock.
So it's not easy but the dilemma for me is breaking the selection of favourites that's now crept back into England.