England's Rotation Policy Considered

The question on everyone's lips at Edgbaston this week, other than, "Is it ever going to stop raining" of course, was whether England's decision to withdraw Jimmy Anderson from their squad for the third and final test against the West Indies was a good one.

With wins at Lords and Trent Bridge in May securing the Wisden Trophy for the home side inside two matches, England decided to shuffle their pack for the final match of the series - a dead rubber - with one eye on the four match series against South Africa to come later in the summer.

The deck was sent in to orbit on Saturday morning however when Andrew Strauss confirmed at the toss that Stuart Broad was also being "rested" from proceedings, with Steven Finn and Graham Onions replacing England's premier opening attack.

Now, here at The Golden Duck we love a good test match, and there are plenty of commentators out there who believe that this dalliance with rotation policy is bad for the stature of test match cricket in this county as it undermines England's ascertain that test cricket is central to their planning.

However, it would be extremely harsh to question ECB's commitment to the longest form of the game in our view - just look at the Ashes tour of 2010/11 when all England'ffort was given to winning the little Urn, with scant consideration given to the One Day World Cup that began just three moths later, England rocking up for that tournament woefully unprepared

No, the ECB's decision to rest their two premier bowlers is to prolong their careers, the thinking being that by shielding them from needless matches in decided series, they will stay fresher for longer, so actually they are putting test cricket first, not devaluing it.

Try telling that to the punters of Birmingham however, who missed two whole days of cricket due to rain only to be presented with an England side missing two of the best fast bowlers in the world, let alone in this country.

Pundits like Ian Botham and Bob Willis spoke passionately about how the resting of these players was wrong for the game but also for the future of the team, as it could disrupt the rhythm of the bowlers who have both bowled beautifully so far this summer it has to be said.

Botham stated that gym work was no alternative for bowling out in the middle and he is right. Bowling is all about rhythm and once you have it, you don't want to lose it, but if Jimmy or Stuart were to injure themselves in Birmingham and then miss any of the series against South Africa, well what then? Sure England would have been true to the format, as they say, but they wouldn't have half done themselves a disservice by losing one of the aforementioned best bowlers in the world going into the aforementioned sterner tests awaiting them this summer.

Is it disrespectful to the West Indies for Onions and Finn to be playing? These two bowlers would walk into most other pace attacks the world over and with Onions in particular bowling so nicely on day one, surely maintained the integrity of England's selection policy for the series finale in Birmingham.

And that is another key point that needs to be raised here: Finn, Onions, Tremlett - England have so many good options in the pace bowling department - why not use them? If Broad or Anderson break down in the first test against South Africa, these guys will need to come in and hit the ground running, and what better way to ensure that happens than to give them experience in the test side just before that series starts?

Finally, it just may be that there is a vacancy in this star studded England team. The place of Tim Bresnan, who performed so well in the second test at Trent Bridge, has been questioned already this summer. If either Finn or Onions plays a blinder at Edgbaston, surely that gives England another option? A selection headache, but a good one.

Bresnan's contribution with the bat is a huge asset to the team, but with Broad and Swann also providing runs perhaps including Onions to provide a greater threat with the ball might be an inviting option for Strauss and Flower with South Africa in mind?

Certainly there are lots of view points on rotation policies and what-not, but it is the way of modern sport nowadays. In fact, you could say that cricket is behind the times in that regard compared to football for example.

This is perhaps just the natural evolution of test cricket. With the growing schedules and ever-increasing demands on players, perhaps rotation is actually just the better management of resources so that the best talent in the world can go on playing for a longer period of time?

Let's see if it catches on.