Turning to cricket - options for the OZ for the Ashes

Now that the Poms have been properly taught their place in the pyjama stuff it's time for the real cricket - the bi-annual Ashes contest - to start. It's been encouraging to see Dizzy Gillespie and Mick Kasprowicz come back to some semblance of form, but both are still a way away from their best form. At the moment you could say the team is nearly confirmed:

1 Langer
2 Hayden
3 Ponting (c)
4 Martyn
5 Clarke
6 ?
7 Gilchrist (wk)
8 Warne
9 Lee
10 ?
11 McGrath

Basically the competitors for those ? spots are, IMO:

6 - Katich/Watson
10 Kasper/Dizzy

The logical approach would be to play Katich at 6 and Kasper at 10 to be first change bowler. So basically the team remains the same as the one which caned the Kiwis in NZ, except for Lee replacing Dizzy, who's still short of form for mine. Seven frontline bats, three quicks and a spinner. The usual OZ formula.

But it may not be as clearcut as that...it all depends on how we want to use Lee. Let's assume Lee will be in the side no matter what as it would be truly criminal for Bing to miss out after being possibly the best OZ bowler in the Natwest series (the first one and the second one).

Who then fills 6 and 10 may come down to how the OZ decide to play. There are two schools of thought regarding Brett Lee:

1. Use him as a strike bowler

Lee is not suited to bowling long spells in Test cricket (bit like Akthar). His main value is in bowling short, sharp, hostile spells where he's bowling all out at maximum pace to try and get wickets. I reckon you bowl him in 5-6 over spells to get the best out of him, nothing more than that. This means that the workload of bowling more overs will have to be distributed among the other quicks (ie Pidge and Kasper). That workload may be a bit much for them.

So...if they adopt this strategy it would make sense to pick Watson at 6 as an allrounder, so that he can be used as a workhorse along with Kasper and McGrath, with Warney and Clarke to provide the spin. I'm the first to say that I think Watson's shithouse, almost Lionsesque with both bat and ball, but he would alleviate the load on Pidge and Kasper and allow Lee to be used as a strike weapon to take wickets. Even though Watson's shite at batting the OZ have Gilly at 7, so 6 1/2 world class batsmen may just be enough to build a decent innings score. The selectors have a love affair with Metrosexual and have been trying to groom him for this sort of allrounder role for a couple of years now.

But there's one problem with this scenario: Watson is shithouse. Both with the bat and the ball. Makes it hard to pick him when he's shithouse. And this scenario would be extremely unfair on Katich, who has missed out so bloody many times (and would be unfair on Hussey, who definitely deserves to be there ahead of Watson as a batsman).

So there's a fallback option:

2. Use Lee as a carthorse with Kasper and Pigeon with Warney and Clarke to provide variety

This would mean Lee would bowl a lot longer spells. This would even up the workload between himself, Kasper and McGrath, and would allow us to pick Katich in to bat at No6 and use Katich's spin to support Clarke and Warne. It allows the entire team to be picked on merit but I still have nightmares of the Indians treating Bing like a gulli bowler in OZ in 2004 (albeit on featherbeds) when he was used as a carthorse.

Or the selectors could be complete boffins and not pick Brett, meaning you'd see this:

3. McGrath/Kasper/Dizzy three-prong with Warney and Clarke to spin

This would be the worst choice IMO, Dizzy's only had one decent game and Kasper only two. Who will Ponting throw the ball to if he needs a wicket aside from Pidge? I've been impressed with Lee's control since the NZ series, I reckon he's ready for a return to Test cricket.

Which leads us to the brave choice:

4. McGrath/Lee/Dizzy/Kasper four prong + Warney and six specialist batsmen

Extremely risky as we're only picking six specialist batsmen, but geez we'd maximise our chances of taking 20 wickets, eh. The great West Indian teams of old only picked six specialist batsmen along with a wicketkeeper so they could pick a four prong of quicks.

I reckon Option 2's the most logical one, but don't be surprised if the selectors plump for Option 1. OZ have traditionally played a 7-3-1 split of seven bats, three pacers and one spinner, so they'll probably go conservative this time.

C'mon you Aussies! Do us proud.