Thanks for the attribution Tim.

Whether to select Monty for your one day side is a straightforward issue with one large proviso. And that is he is used solely as an attacking weapon. He must be given licence to take 4-55 of his ten overs, persisted with if (with modern bats and small grounds in the Caribbean it's likely to happen) someone gets three thick-edged sixes in succession off him, and above all encouraged by bowling him early in an innings when wickets matter.

Brett Lee's test profligacy is ironically tolerated more in one day cricket by Australia than it is in tests, and testament to that patience is his high ICC ranking in recent years, owing much to his wicket-taking ability. Monty could be similarly-effective.

The instant your captain (whoever he may be) loses his nerve, you might lose Monty in more than just one day matches though.

I agree, Monty would be terrific in the World Cup, Daniel Vettori bowls alright in ODIs, so why not give Monty a try? Enough with the bits'n'pieces players get batters who score runs and bowlers that take wickets.

Well. The time has come for England to sort out their 1 day side, and by picking Monty, it would hopefully mean that they are taking the game a bit more seriously.
We need wicket takers, and as he proved last week, he can do that.
Saying all this, i don't think they will.

Idiots.

Monty must play but unfortunately as we have seen, in matters of England selection the jowl is mightier than the beard !

Monty must be picked, England desperately need wicket-takers in the one-day team!

Monty showed in the Perth test his fielding is much better now and his batting is OK too, certainly good enough for the number 11 slot in a one day side.

Fully agreed. Talismanic players are few and far between and if the entire side have been saying Monty's attitude gives them a lift, then it would be crass and stupid to leave him out.

Good bowlers are good bowlers. Yes, Monty has not played much one-day cricket, and yes, that one glorious shot aside his batting is nothing to write home about, but boy does Monty leave an impression.

And lets face it: his inclusion cannot possibly make the team worse. In fact, that talismanic lift alone might be enough to make them better, so woeful have England been, even before you add his bowling to the mix!

Tim

Not just Monty but also ensure that Jon Lewis is included. Its a travesty that he has been ignored for so long in the one day arena his experience and guile and big match attitude will be just what England need, not Mahmood giving away 5 - 6 an over.

Monty & Jon need match practice for the World Cup where they will both reap excellent returns on the WI wickets, where Gayle & Bradshaw also excel!!

So if Monty plays then Read should also, Jones really hasn't performed, but I suppose that the "Old Boys" network will triumph once again and Jones will play.

Shame on the Selectors (whoever they may be??).

ure absolutely right, englands team is a shambels and they should give monty a go, we cant pluumet into more derths so why not. Although he needs to improbve his fielding which ha already improved to be a permanat fixture int he onday team

I agree, Tim. I think Fletcher lost sight of the simple truths. In any team, club, test or one day, surely you pick your best batsmen and your best bowlers and that means batsmen who score runs and bowlers who take wickets. Why do England always hold themselves back with fiddling for "balance"? How many runs or wickets does balance get? They made the same mistake in the 90's with taking a superb attacking opener away - Alec Stewart and not picking the best keeper - Jack Russell. When has the fiddling and tactical selecting worked? Monty takes wickets, get him in the side. The current one day team are next to bottom of the list?

Tim is absolutely right in what he says. Now is exactly the time to take a gamble on players. England have nothing to loose in picking Panesar. England need inspiration and in one day cricket this has too often been a factor which is missing. What most people too often forget is that wickets in one day cricket are of almost equal importance to wickets in test matches. A couple of wicktets can stop a run rate in it's tracks and change the course of a game. In short now is the time for England to forget about Duncan Fltcher's one day balance and take a gamble. Panesar may just come off.

This is going to hurt me far more than it hurts you, Tim, but for once I'm inclined to agree with you. He's surely worth a place in the squad, and probably the team, particularly with Giles not up for consideration. Yardy is and never will be a decent bits and pieces player; he's barely county class. Monty can only make the team better and I hope he's picked. But it will take more than than his presence to transform the team's fortunes. He will bowl ten tidy overs to be sure, but what about the other 40? Only Flintoff's and Harmison's return to form can make us truly competitive.

I beg to disagree. Monty might end up with figures of 10-0-50-3. Add another 10 runs due to his fielding and a drop catch. The figures are effectively 10-0-60-2. Its no longer pretty

The Perth test was for me the first opportunity to watch Panesar bowl. It was quickly evident why he had such an impact over the english summer. Somewhat precipitately, I would say he has the aura of greatness about him - that he is the third such player in the current England team along with Flintoff and Pieterson (and possibly even Cook). In the context of sport, greatness is a curious term. It is used with indiscriminatee prolixity. Even such shrewd judges as Steve Waugh have been inclined to invoke its favours over frequently - most particularly when talking up the virtues of his own team. Over recent years, almost every member of the Australian top six, has at some point been annointed by Waugh as the 'world's greatest batsman'. Yet, strangely, in the sporting arena, genuine greatness is readily discernable. Pieterson evinced it in his very first test innings. So did Warne with his first 'Ashes' ball. Others assume it gradually. Consider Waugh himself, or Flintoff. Over recent decades England have fielded many estimable and a few outstanding cricketers, but little in the way of greatness. Botham, with immediate effect; Gower - if somewhat ephemerally; Gooch, slowly but surely: noone else. Undoubtedly, this has been a primary reason for the ease with which Australia, replete with a team full of great and near great players, has asserted its supremacy.

Of course, readers may baulk at so definitive a use of this term greatness - as though it were some genetic stamp, as though a player walked on to a sporting arena with the words 'great player' hovering like a halo above their head. Yet, oddly enough, this is often the case. Apart from the examples above, any recollection of first impressions of the likes of say, Tendulkar and Lara, tend to confirm it. Michael Clarke has greatness inscribed upon his cricketing person. Greatness in sport is a particualr kind of greatness, and is only indirectly related to the historical or moral connotations of the term. It is simultaneously more practically demonstrable, as the ability to repeatedly exert influence over the course of sporting contests, and a form of mystique, a manifest charisma. Some players touch sporting greatness briefly, glow with its incandescence over the course of an inninings, or a match, or a series, some are capable of it sporadically. Others carry it as a birthright. It surrounds them even in their failures.

Nodoubt, great players do not ensure a great team - Real Madrid, for example; but they are necessary to a great team. The absence of such players in the England team has been conspicuous. There are many reasons for this absence - most notably the way English cricket has been, until recently, weighted to a professionalism at first class rather than at test level, such that players professional obligations, and consequently, their methods and approaches, were tailored to county rather than to test cricket. It was a professionalism of survival rather than of aspiration. No doubt, the establishment of central contracts has been the main determinant of the recent upsurge in England's fortunes. Once again, it takes the field with the confidence that it, too, has palyers who can recurrently and decisively seize the momentum of a test match. Panesar would seem one such player.

His absence in Brisbane and Adelaide, and the hesitancy surrounding Pieterson's selection for the 2005 series raises the query: why has England so often quibbled in respect of those of its players who are demonstrably extraordinary? Consider the sudden curtailment of Bedsar's career, the peculiarly erratic selections of Laker and Trueman? Why the reluctance?

Two more lines of thought. While the frustration at Englands questionable, even reprehensible, selection policy is readily understandable, the orgie of recrimination that has folowed inexorably in the wake of England's loss of the ashes would seem excessive. Very likely, England's infrequent and all tooo brief tenures of sporting summits is at least partly attributable for this over zealous appetite for recrimination. Dod anyone reallly believ that England, even with all its best players available was going to defeat a similarly 'fit and firing' Australian team in Australia. Bothamesque bravado to the contrary, at this juncture Australia is still a great team (quite possibly, the greatest), and Endland, even at their best, are as yet, a good team. For the current England team, and by this I mean circa 2005 with Vaughan as captain and Jones and Trescothick playing and playing well, to have defeated the current Australian team two series in succession, would simply have been a sporting injustice. Rather than indulging in recrimination, England supporters would be better served by reflecting on how young and inexperienced was the team who played in Perth, and on how very considerble is the promise of just this team. The comparison between the the two teams that played in that match was striking in both directions: the Australian team so very experienced, but correspondingly in their twilight, the England team, un usually callow, but with so much before them. Since when did an England team field so many relatively young players of suchevident quality. A team which is likely to include Cook, Bell, Pieterson and Panesar for possibly a decade to come has much to look forward to. Given the impending retirements of half the present Australian team, there is a good chance their hold upon the ashes will also be brief.

I'm still in two minds about picking Monty for the one day side.
On the one hand it will help him adjust his bowling when the batsmen are being aggressive in test matches and also his fielding will improve.
However, I'm concerned about protecting 'Monty - The test match bowler' who is not afraid to flight the ball and tease the batsmen. I'm afraid that he might lose this quality if he plays too much one day cricket.
I was also concerned about having Cook in the one day side for the same reason - to protect 'Cook - the test match player', however the more I watch of Cook, the more I realise he could benefit from the one day element of rotating the strike. While he may be technically near faultless, he does absorb pressure and allow the bowlers to set him traps by bowling a whole over at him. By playing lots of one day cricket he could hopefully become like a Mike Hussey - a technically correct player who can manipulate the strike and run quick ones and twos.

It's good to see Tim post a blog about England's one day team when possibly the biggest story from the Ashes is going on at the moment - Warne and McGrath possibly retiring. I thought this was section was about the Ashes? But I suppose if Flintoff said he was going to retire we'd be hearing all about it hey, or if England were not looking down the barrell of 5-0.

However I will mention something in regards to the topic. Panesar should not be dropped from the team for at least two years I would say, and that's from either team. He has the ability to take wickets which is great, his fielding is on the up and aftre watching his batting i couldn't really see how he was any worse than Hoggard or Harmison. England should pick 5 batsmen, one true allrounder, a keeper, three or four attacking bowlers and maybe just one bits and pieces player. All these attempted all-rounders make me think they are trying to be the team that one in Sharjah almost ten years ago, but those combinations don't work anymore - you must take wickets to win games. Collingwood is a very good one day bowler too don't forget. My team would be Strauss, Cook, Pieterson, Collingwood, Bell, Flintoff, Dalrymple, Read, Harmison, Lewis, Panesar.
No Vaughan - he doesn't even have an ODI century, so whats all the fuss about!! Flintoff is Englands best one-day bowler. Harmison is just finding form and he is attacking. Take a gamble with Panesar and leave him there for a while. Lewis needs to be given more respect from the management. Collingwood is a very good one-day bowler. Pieterson and Bell can bowl a few overs too. Stick with this group of players for a while and give them time to find their feet before you chop and change.

I hope your next blog is about the Test series Tim.

Exactly right, Monty must play. It's a cliche, but taking wickets on a regular basis wins you one-day games. Attacking bowlers who have control are gold-dust: Monty fits into both categories.

Also, wouldn't it be great to see England actually do something inventive in their one-day cricket? We have never set a trend. Wouldn't it be great to see England change their batting order according to situation - to sometimes throw Pieterson or Flintoff up the order, to promote Read in the middle overs to get a scurrying 20, or something.

We must play two spinners in the Caribbean - Dalrymple is an excellent cricketer to have in the team. Also, it would be fantastic if Simon Jones was fit by then. Don't forget that the West Indies habitually only play 2 out and out bowlers at home, and have been very successful.

Look at the following team: with some flexibility of tactics, am I dreaming to suggest that they could be surprisingly good?

Strauss, Joyce/Shah/Bell, Vaughan, Pieterson, Collingwood, Flintoff, Dalrymple, Read, Jones, Panesar, Lewis.

As Flash Ash noted, Lewis is very similar to Ian Bradshaw, and would be ideally suited to Caribbean wickets - and has also bowled very well when picked. If Jones is not fit, probably Jimmy Anderson, or Harmison (Caribbean is about the only place overseas he's bowled well), or Stuart Broad if you truly believe he can take wickets.

Inclined to agree with Ian here.The merits of a wicket taker in ODIs are sometimes overlooked.(But I would be delighted with a 4/55 off 10 overs on West Indies grounds!Perhaps the "worry" might be more 4/55 off 5 overs...)
His fielding would be a bit of a concern,while batting is irrelevant in the context of a 50 over game.
My only real concern would be the possible effect on Monty himself: I should hate to see him become a defensive minded bowler through worrying too much about runs conceded. He would not be the first spinner to spoil himself for "Real" cricket by concentrating too much on economy.

They picked Monty - Hurrah!
They've left out Broad - unbelieveable

The coach doesn't know what he's doing in one-day cricket, which might be a function of his focus on Tests. The simple truth he seems to miss is that wickets are the same thing as runs, you can't trade one for the other...if you give up a wicket taking bowler for a lesser bowler who might get a few more runs you won't over several matches be better off - his extra runs will be frittered away in less economical bowling and in bigger partnerships against you. Above all, Monty gives clarity: he is there to bowl, and I wouldn't be suprised if he can take the pace off the ball nicely to slow the scoring as well as take wickets sometimes. His variations will prove hard to hit.

This is why I hope to goodness that DF's harping on abot batting in depth is only a smokescreen for what he knows has been a false presumption...Monty's inclusion today is wonderful news and might presage a policy shift...some hope!

No Broad (what has he done so wrong that he didn't merit inclusion? Is he injured?) and yes Phil Nixon is admittedly a man in form but surely Nic Pothas would be a better option.