My first thoughts on this are that it’s a bit of an odd squad, or atleast it leads me to believe the balance of the side will be a little bit ‘goofy’.
I support the idea of resting our strike bowlers if/when possible given the grind of a county summer and obviously Stokes’ return allows us the luxury where his omission shouldn’t be as heavily felt as it would be if we didn’t have one of the greatest allrounders of all time slotting into the side. However, there’s been talk of Stokes taking the new ball, which feels quite odd given he’s never done it for any prolonged period before. I was excited to see him in an attack alongside Potts and Raine (we may get that next week) because it’s become clear through four games that if we do have a weakness, it’s the change bowlers, who are largely falling short of the required standard once Raine and Potts have taken their sweaters. Putting a bowler of Stokes’ calibre into our attack
should constitute an upgrade of ‘cheat code’ levels. It definitely would do if he was coming on after Potts and Raine, but the oddity that is potentially being created here brings to the surface a worry (for me, but maybe I worry too much) that the team that takes to the field tomorrow will be weaker as a whole than the one that started the game at Lords.
Hopefully I’m worrying about nowt, I’m fairly certain Stokes will give his absolute all to make an impression and drag us to a third win of the year. Either way, I’m excited for 11:00 tomorrow.
I think with Ollie, he's kept his place because there is no one better. Bowman & Mustard not yet as good as he is.
The Lieutenant scored 70 today for the 2’s but I think you’re right, the club appear to believe neither of those two are particularly close to being ready yet.
