Look at the wickets he took - Johnson, Siddle and Clark.



The Australian top order played him with relative ease in both innings, on a pitch that should have suited him down to the ground. Time to move on IMO, and Plunkett now is a significantly better bowler than he was when he first got his chance with England.

I mistakenly thought he was already eligible. His profile on Cricinfo classifies him as South African and says he "has decided to qualify for England" without specifying when this will happen. He played for SA in the 2005/6 Under-19's World Cup, so if he's been resident here since then (he was educated in England) he should be eligible at the start of next season.



Tim Ambrose didn't really grasp the nettle; I expect the selectors will go for James Foster or Steven Davies instead.



Personally I'd give serious consideration to picking other candidates ahead of Bell, Collingwood and Harmison, though I don't expect the selectors will leave any of those off the plane. It's going to be at least as tough a series as the one just ended, so as Bopara has just been rested following poor form against testing opposition it would be a nonsense to recall him immediately.

Simple solution to the number three problem, get a steady reliable partner for Strauss up the order. If the number three is coming in to face a ball which is 40 overs old every time, with the score 120/1, whats the difference between batting there or batting at four / five?

If he could exorcise his current demons, and we find a new opener, Alistair Cook himself would be the ideal choice at number 3 IMO.

Yeah but the thing is mate County Championship bowlers are nowhere near the quality of international bowlers. I think Bopara is a very good player and shouldnt be discarded bat him lower down at 5/6 facing a old ball that isnt swinging and he will get tons of runs. The swinging ball has caused him trouble hes not going to sort that by playing CC give him a run lower down the order. Agree with the Kieswetter call hes been very impressive and gets the nod over Foster has Foster wont get you has many runs. That's test match by the way i would have Foster in the ODI and play Prior as a batter '"

pontings comming back home

Well no one else was managing to take those wickets were they? If we have a better option than Harmison then great, but Plunkett is not it, just seems to be an expensive bolwer to me. If he is the best alternative we have then Harmy should go to SA.

In his interview afterwards he said that he would go to SA. But he said it in the same tone that I might say to my wife "Yes, your dad can come to stay". Didnt inspire confidence.

As opposed to what? 2 weeks R&R in Blackpool?

I assume playing in the Scotland game and the 2 Twenty20's. It was announced a while back he would be missing those and returning to Australia for a bit. He may even be missing for a couple of the early ODI's against England, but he'll be back here for the end of the tour.



Remember, as soon as the series is over it's off to SA for the Champions Trophy. England's first game there is only 5 days after the last Australia game.

Harmison is definatly a better than option Plunkett looked so much out of he's depth at international hes only ever going to be a steady county player

Statistically Harmison should be in there. In this year’s Championship Plunkett has a respectable number of wickets at 25 apiece, but Harmison has plenty more at 18 apiece. However it’s not always as simple as that. Statistically Ramprakash ought to be batting at 3 for England and Chris Read would be a shoo-in for the second wicketkeeper’s place and a whisker away from usurping Prior in the XI.



Harmison has been particularly erratic in recent years, especially on tour overseas. Matthew Hoggard was dropped for good after far fewer inadequate performances. Personally I think the time has come to identify suitable younger bowlers and give them a go, although there isn’t a long queue of impressive candidates.



Bresnan is the most recent discard and didn’t seem to impress many. Mahmood hasn’t pressed his case convincingly. Plunkett is having a decent season for the best team in the championship; he was too raw when first chosen and is a useful lower order bat to boot. However, as Harmison’s latest recall was initially reported as being to provide cover specifically for Flintoff, who is now out of the equasion, I’ll be surprised if the selectors don’t keep him in. The best untried option that springs to mind is Mark Davies, yet another Durham man, but he seems extremely prone to niggling injuries.



As for the batting: Cook has just had a run of poor form in the last three matches after a relatively long spell of consistency in which he rarely seemed to be out for less than 20 or 30 even if his conversion rate of 50’s to 100’s isn’t great. Bell & Bopara both bat 3 at county level but don’t look convincing there at Test level, and I can’t think of another county no.3 worth considering other than Owais Shah, who has also been sketchy in his occasional previous Tests, so going with three openers is an option worth pondering. Rob Key would be the experienced option, otherwise his Kent partner Joe Denly or Steven Moore or Michael Carberry are others apparently being monitored by the powers that be. I saw a fair bit of Carberry, who was a squad player at Surrey during their era of dominance around the start of the decade. He’s a very attractive batsman to watch but in those days never seemed to turn his promising starts into anything substantial, as he has done for Hampshire this summer, and he’s also a splendid fielder at cover or midwicket.



Having just introduced Jonathan Trott I’m not sure the selectors will want another newcomer in the top order just yet though. If they do pick a new man for the tour I expect he’ll be very much the reserve batsman unless something extraordinary occurs in the pre-Test warm up matches, of which there will no doubt be two at most. I do feel we need a third batsman in the party capable of opening if necessary, although I can’t help feeling the selectors will stick with Collingwood and include Bopara, leaving us with a potential headache if Cook or (worse still) Strauss is incapacitated on the eve of a Test match. Strauss, Cook, Bell, Pietersen and Trott are certainties, not only for the squad but probably for the First Test too. Despite Broad & Swann both doing well with the bat in the series just ended, in the wake of Flintoff’s retirement I reckon the selectors will also want the option of picking an extra batsman in the XI and going with just four bowlers plus an auxiliary medium pacer such as Collingwood or Bopara.



The squad I expect the selectors to choose is:



Strauss

Cook

Bell

Pietersen

Trott

Collingwood

Bopara



Prior

Foster or Davies (no real preference)



Broad

Anderson

Onions

Sidebottom

Harmison

Swann

Panesar or (preferably) Rashid



I’d like them to choose a third opener instead of Collingwood, a limited batsman who’s done his best and often produced the goods when the chips are down, but must be close to the end of his Test career now; and a younger fast bowler instead of Harmison, Plunkett probably being the best option – I haven’t seen enough of him to judge whether he’s improved sufficiently in the last couple of years. I’d also be minded to take Shah instead of Bopara, but let’s face it there will be minimal changes after we’ve just won the Ashes.