When pulling out from the Indian team for the Twenty20 World Cup, Rahul Dravid (presumably on behalf of himself, Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly) said something to the effect of the shortest form of the game (so far) being a game for youngsters.
Either the English selectors don’t believe Dravid or they don’t read the newspapers. Not only have they recalled a staggering eleven players, eight out of the eleven players are on the wrong side of 30, while a ninth, Chris Schofield, is 29. The average age of the recalled players is 31, while that of the existing lot is just 26.
While I don’t necessarily believe that only youngsters can be successful in Twenty20, it does seem incredible that England have pulled so many players from the tried-and-discarded lot from the past, some of whom should definitely be eying their benefits in the not-too-distant future.
Well, England invented Twenty20; they should know how it works.
England squad (in alphabetical order, ages in brackets)
Existing lot: James Anderson (25), Ian Bell (25), Ravi Bopara (22), Stuart Broad (21), Paul Collingwood (captain) (31), Alastair Cook (23), Andrew Flintoff (30), Monty Panesar (25), Kevin Pietersen (27), Liam Plunkett (22), Matt Prior (25), Owais Shah (29), Ryan Sidebottom (29), Vikram Solanki (31), Jonathan Trott (26), Michael Yardy (27)
New picks: Dimitri Mascarenhas (30), Mark Pettini (24), Luke Wright (22)
Recalls: Tim Bresnan (22), Glen Chapple (33), James Kirtley (32), Jon Lewis (32), Mal Loye (35), Darren Maddy (33), Paul Nixon (37), Chris Schofield (29), Jeremy Snape (34), Chris Tremlett (26), Marcus Trescothick (32)
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