Where is Owais Shah and why is Mahmood in the side? Can Luke Wright cut the test match mustard?

While just re-reading my last blog post and going over the England ODI squad for the South Africa tour, I just noticed the surprising absence of Owais Shah. Instead they seem to have replaced him with Alastair Cook or Sajid Mahmood.

As for Cook, he is a talented batsman in tests but just doesn’t have the ODI game. Shah may be patchy but on his day he is brilliant. The problem is he only seems to have his ‘days’ half the time. Now, Sajid Mahmood’s inclusion (snort), what a ridiculous decision. Even without Mahmood in the side we would have; Anderson, Bresnan, Broad, Onions and Luke Wright. 5 pacers! Do we really need 6 with Mahmood? Mahmood has been poor domestically and in ODI’s in the past, so even if you weren’t going to have Owais in the side (which I think they should), at least don’t have Mahmood, we definitely need another steady top order batsman instead of that wally Sajid who I thought was an England reject!

Also, while going through the test match squad I noticed Luke Wright has been included, despite having never played in a test match. Meh. I am a huge Luke Wright fan in ODI’s but looking at his first class record, he is far from impressive. His first class batting average is 35.85 and his bowling average is 42.96. Far from impressive. Maybe Owais Shah is another man they should have turned to for the test match squad aswell.