**Official Ireland in England 2020**

[Howe_zat]

All three matches will take place at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, behind closed doors..

1st ODI - Thursday 30 July

2nd ODI - Saturday 1 August

3rd ODI - Tuesday 4 August

With the first ODI only two days after the end of the third test it's not very surprising tht all the test players miss out.

England Squad:

Eoin Morgan (Middlesex)
Moeen Ali (Worcestershire)
Jonny Bairstow (Yorkshire)
Tom Banton (Somerset)
Sam Billings (Kent)
Tom Curran (Surrey)
Liam Dawson (Hampshire)
Joe Denly (Kent)
Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire)
Adil Rashid (Yorkshire)
Jason Roy (Surrey)
Reece Topley (Surrey)
James Vince (Hampshire)
David Willey (Yorkshire).

Reserves: Richard Gleeson (Lancashire), Lewis Gregory (Somerset), Liam Livingstone (Lancashire).

Phil Salt misses out despite his 58-ball ton for the Lions against the same opposition. Young bowlers Brooks and Helm who took three wickets each are also going to have to wait. Joe Denly is back, somewhat curiously.

Ireland Squad

Andy Balbirnie (c)
Mark Adair
Curtis Campher
Peter Chase
Gareth Delany
George Dockrell
Jonathan Garth
Tyrone Kane
Josh Little
Andy McBrine
Barry McCarthy
James McCollum
Kevin O'Brien
William Porterfield
Boyd Rankin
Simi Singh
Paul Stirling
Harry Tector
Stuart Thompson
Lorcan Tucker
Gary Wilson
Craig Young

 

[trundler]

Why Billings

 

[Chubb]

Why Billings

Kent, same with Denly. The Chosen County.

 

[Howe_zat]

Why Billings

He's been on the fringes of the ODI side forever, can keep wicket, has a very good list A record. I'm fine with him as an understudy to Buttler when we have a pretty thinned out squad.

Denly selection is weirder. I also don't see much of a role for Dawson unless we've got a spinner injury crisis. I think with Ali given as vice captain we may see Rashid spend a game or two on the bench with how wet the last couple of weeks have been.

 

[Bijed]

I guess Denly is meant to be the anchor role in this squad. It's not ideal, but I'm not too upset with it in the circumstances

 

[Howe_zat]

Like, as a stop-gap it's fine. But why doesn't that benefit apply to say Liam Plunkett?

Or, if they're thinking that Plunkett won't be around for long and we should use this partly-second-string squad to look at new players, why pick Denly over Salt or Hain?

It's a bit of a hedging job of a squad. Anyway now that I've furrowed my eyebrows at him I'm sure denly will make the most runs.

 

[Flem274*]

let's go mark adair

 

[Dan]

Yeah weird that they're not taking a look at Hain tbh.

I guess they're looking at Denly at 3 or 4 or something whereas Hain's opened a lot for Warks iirc so they may not want to play him 'out of position', but hasn't stopped them from picking literally eight opening options in the squad.

 

[Howe_zat]

Yeah weird that they're not taking a look at Hain tbh.

I guess they're looking at Denly at 3 or 4 or something whereas Hain's opened a lot for Warks iirc so they may not want to play him 'out of position', but hasn't stopped them from picking literally eight opening options in the squad.

The side they cobble together will probably have Banton at five or six so yeah, I don't think they're bothered about deploying young openers wherever.

I'm guessing:

1. Roy
2. Bairstow
3. Vince/Denly
4. Morgan
5. Billings
6. Banton
7. Ali
8. Willey
9. Curran
10. Rashid
11. Topley

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, Plunkett over one of the newer fast bowlers would have been so much more sensible. Is it too late for him to move to Kent?

 

[mr_mister]

as if they're not playing a test.

 

[Bijed]

Like, as a stop-gap it's fine. But why doesn't that benefit apply to say Liam Plunkett?

Or, if they're thinking that Plunkett won't be around for long and we should use this partly-second-string squad to look at new players, why pick Denly over Salt or Hain?

It's a bit of a hedging job of a squad. Anyway now that I've furrowed my eyebrows at him I'm sure denly will make the most runs.

Yeah there's definitely been some inconsistency in how some players have been treated/managed.

The real issue is of course that James Vince is in the squad

 

[honestbharani]

That cover drive man, that cover drive, even if he nicks it to slip.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

It already feels like Denly is going to be primarily remembered for being Smith's BFF rather than for his run as 'servicable placeholder' in the Test team. I guess that's not the grandest of legacies to tarnish, but I'd still rather it went untarnished.

Series seemed ideal to try Hain at 3. Would rather they'd picked Livingstone over Denly too (he would even be a more reliable bowling option if they were counting Denly's leggies in his favour).

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

That cover drive man, that cover drive, even if he nicks it to slip.

The BBC recently ran an 'ultimate England Test cricketer of the 21st century' feature where the idea was that you built a cricketer a shot at a time based on the best exponent of that skill. (E.g. you got Atherton's forward defensive, KP's pull shot, Stokes' straight drive, etc.) The panel of experts did actually shortlist Vince as one of the top three players of the cover drive for the public to select from. Getting out every game to the same shot for a low score mustn't be allowed to outweigh the positives of a nice aesthetic.

 

[Uppercut]

Cover drive is the worst shot in cricket. Its best exponent was Jonathan Trott circa 2010, in that he never, ever played it and therefore never got out.

 

[Howe_zat]

Its best exponent was Shaun Marsh circa 2015, though I understand we are using a different measure of success.

 

[honestbharani]

Nah, the backfoot cover drive is a thing of beauty. And the Rohit Sharma Virat Kohli Babar Azam front foot cover drives are ***y af.

 

[Uppercut]

I'm just scarred from the days when Steyn and Anderson were the best bowlers in the world. They'd open with 10 slips and a keeper, every one of them chirping "get him driving" before and after every ball. Meanwhile a procession of West Indian or Pakistani batsmen came and went, each one absolutely convinced that, although they'd already nicked out 7 times that series, *this* ball was a genuine half-volley that definitely needed to be creamed through the covers. It went without saying that they couldn't just stop playing the shot that everyone kept getting out to. That would be "allowing the bowlers to dictate the play" and lead to many terrible things, like Ian Chappell getting bored on commentary and questioning their masculinity.

 

[vcs]

If every batsman just played percentage cricket because it was the sensible thing to do, we probably wouldn't bother watching cricket at all..