Sometimes I just don’t understand England’s selectors. They have a very peculiar worldview. Sometimes the answer to the team’s problems is staring them in the face but they either can’t see it or refuse to see it. Take Ian Bell’s continued omission from the team.
Bell has been an England stalwart for over a decade. He’s scored 22 test hundreds and has plenty of cricket left in him. Yes, he had a run of bad form last year, but it was no worse than the skipper’s trough a few years ago. The selectors stood by Cook and were rewarded. Yet Bell has constantly been denied this second chance – despite the fact that the middle-order is crying out for an experienced head.
The way some pundits talk about Bell is remarkable. Although he’s only just turned 34, they treat him like a signed up member of the blue rinse brigade. Forget the cricket, they seem to say, here’s a list of bingo sites to learn about software instead. The truth is, however, that Ian Bell isn’t yet ready to hang up his spikes and retire to the bingo halls. He could still score mountains of runs for England.
It seems inconceivable to me, as a neutral, that Bell would remain in the wilderness if Ashley Giles, England’s former limited overs head coach, was on the selection panel. Giles, of course, is a Warwickshire man who knows Bell very well. Unfortunately, however, the current selectors are Mick Newell and Angus Fraser, who are full time employees of Notts and Middlesex respectively. As a result they favour players from those particular counties – whether this bias is subconscious or not. If there is no bias, I’m struggling to think how else any seasoned cricket watcher could possibly regard Nick Compton as a better player than Bell.
I know it’s sometimes difficult to find truly independent candidates to work as England selectors. The exclusion of journalists (whether writers or TV pundits) from the running narrows the field substantially. However, surely we can do better than two men who are still heavily involved with particular counties? It’s a clear conflict of interest.
No matter how impartial Newell and Fraser try to be, they can never be truly objective when they’re dealing with county players they know personally (and have forged close bonds with). What’s more, the perception of bias is also extremely important – even if none actually exists. Time and again we return to the principle of Caesar’s wife: England’s selectors must be beyond suspicion. Even the mere suggestion of bias should be enough to disqualify them from their roles.
As things stand, an experienced batsman who is still scoring runs in county cricket is being ignored in favour of unproven batsmen who have looked very unconvincing thus far in their international careers. Is doesn’t seem right. Meanwhile, the leading run scorers in the championship this year – batsmen like Scott Borthwick and the unbelievably unlucky James Hildreth – are also ignored while Notts and Middlesex bowlers like Jake Ball and Toby Roland Jones suddenly jump to the front of the queue from nowhere.
Something’s not quite right with England’s selection policy at the moment. Perhaps Newell and Fraser are biased. Or perhaps – and this seems possible too – they’re just not very good. England might be winning more test matches than they lose at the moment, but sometimes I think it’s in spite of our selectors not because of them.
James Morgan
