It’ll be interesting to see what they go with selection wise for a number of positions. Not just tomorrow but over the coming weeks, I expect Jones and Dickson could open tomorrow given the end to last season for Jones and the fact that Dickson has been an opener for a decent chunk of his career.
As I understand it, Keegan Peterson isn’t here yet, but he bats 3 for South Africa and was man of the Series for them against India back in January so he’s clearly got some pedigree. I wouldn’t be against Borthwick opening if he wanted/was willing to do that. It may serve him better in the long run to drop down the order however. Time will tell.
Bedingham is 4 (if he wants it) for as long as he wants it. The bloke is different class. He batted there for a decent chunk last year and his record speaks for itself. There were so many times last year where it looked like he was batting on a different wicket in a different game to everyone else.
Continuing on, 5 is interesting, because that is a position that all last season was up for grabs. Burnham, Eckersley and Dickson all had stints there and neither really made it their own. Long term I’d prefer Eckersley no higher than 6, although I’m in the school of people who generally thinks that the wicket keeper should be at 7. The difference for us is that we have a squad packed full of bowling allrounders. There have been times previously where we’ve had any combination of Carse/Potts/Coughlin/Raine coming in as high as 7 onwards.
Ultimately, for all the opening slots are the current topic of discussion, I think our bigger issue lies in the middle to lower order - those slots from 5 as I mentioned down to 8. For me, our top order will be stacked with class. International class for that matter. At our strongest we’ll have Lees, Borthwick, Bedingham, Peterson and Ben Stokes occupying positions from 1 to 5 in some variation or another. It’s hard to imagine even in worst case scenarios that we’ll regularly struggle to make top order runs. I think what it will probably come down to is that we will start the season with an embarrassment of riches and in the best case scenario of having all the international players available (Stokes has stressed his desire to England to play for us in the early part of the season to get some practice ahead of the home Test Matches).
I keep saying it, but it really feels like it’s true. The future is bright. For the first time in a long time we have a squad that on paper atleast looks as good as any squad in the country. Division One or Two. That’s before even considering the bowling options.
At our strongest, we could have any order of:
Lees
Borthwick
Petersen
Bedingham
Stokes
Dickson/Jones
Eckersley
Raine
Carse
Potts
Rushworth
Which still leaves Coughlin, Salisbury, Clark in reserve.
