England Test tour party to West Indies

Given Cook and Moores lack of imagination I reckon Trott will be in for Lyth and Tredwell in for Rashid. Shai Hope is a former Bedes school cricketer.

Today will be the first day of a Test series for England in West Indies, and yet almost no-one in England has any interest in the progress of the games, other than the pro- and anti-Moores groups who will be looking for points to be scored. That seems quite incredible to me, brought up to perceive these rare and exotic encounters as offering challenges of a wholly different order to the Ashes Tests, but equally important in defining the careers of the players taking part.

I don't recall the bumper battles of 1960 with Trueman mixing it against Hall, but I have very strong memories of 1968, when John Snow came of age as a fast bowler with 27 cheap wickets in 4 Tests; when Alan Knott finally replaced Parks and showed his class immediately not only with great keeping but with two different vital innings; and when Tony Lock was summoned to fly from Australia for his last hurrah after Titmus sliced off his toes in a boating accident. Lock's hurrah was a brave and belligerent 89, partly made with Pocock as an unlikely but stubborn partner in defiance.

74 was Tony Greig, of course, and Dennis Amiss and Boycott scoring gallons of runs while the West Indies batting regrouped and Rowe and Kallicharran matched them. That was the tour of the triumphant final Test when Greig really tried out his off-spinners and surprised everyone with 13 wickets in the match, outspinning Underwood, Pocock and Birkenshaw - imagine that now, a Leicestershire player in a Test match!

Then after years of waiting, traumatic years when Greig made a racist fool of himself at home, followed by the Packer years and the emergence of new, dynamic West Indian players, the 81 side: the farce of waiting to see which Caribbean government would refuse to entertain Jackman with his Southern African involvements, and then after that was resolved, the tragedy of Ken Barrington's death, and the subsequent disintegration of the England team under pressure from bat and ball.

Then the disastrous Gower tour with the number of England defeats limited to 5 by the number of matches played, and 1990, with a tragic false dawn, when England comfortably won the 1st Test through the bowling of Malcolm, Fraser and Small, and should have been sailing through to win the 2nd, only to loose Gooch to injury and to settle for a draw as time ran out and Haynes, acting captain, took his time over bowling changes and field settings. England were engulfed in the last two matches and lost the series.

Finally, series dominated by Lara, supported at first by Ambrose and others, then finally single-handedly managing to trump England, even if the series was lost, as the prototype for Fletcher's great team won through in 2004 featuring the Harmison-Hoggard-Flintoff-Jones line up - and still Lara made 400!

Despite all the attractions of a new English season, the issues about management and selection, and the dreadful problems that have mangled West Indian cricket and reduced their own standard, I hope that some of the cricket will live up to these past battles, and that some new star will emerge - on either side - and we can take something positive and fittingly historic from these games.

Team as expected: Trott opening with Cook and Tredwell the sole spinner (Root excepted).

Well, not Trott, who can help them carry the tray after falling for the 3-ball trick. I do think a better time to bowl Rashid would have been when he isn't bowling rubbish, which was the case on the Lions tour and in the practice games last week. Nice chap, very good batsman, but....

Agreed. I think its a poor selection all round. Some things - the almost complete dearth of spinners in championship cricket - you can't do much about and have to pick someone who can do a job for you, but the rest of the touring party represented an excellent opportunity to give youth a chance and rest some of those tired old limbs. After all, the calendar has been filled with a preposterous number of Tests against very stiff opposition later this year, so now is the time to find out what young batsmen and bowlers can do.

However....your Mr Graves has already laid down, with the force of Holy Writ, that "“If we don’t win, there will be some inquiries of why we haven’t,” Graves told BBC Radio Leeds. “I’d certainly be disappointed if we don’t win the West Indies series, because I am pretty sure the West Indies are going to have a mediocre team. A lot of their stars are going to be playing in the Indian Premier League, not in the Tests, so we should win that series.”

So there you are: we can't afford to lose, even if it means playing the wrong team

And as I type this Cook goes......

But I recall you agreeing with GD on certain occasions (albeit grudgingly!), so please don't tell us you don't trust anything he says - or your own credibility may become tested! This vendetta continues to distort the normally high quality of your reporting, BM - I don't think I'm the only one on this board to notice your teeny weeny bit of bias against GD.

BTW, did you deliberately omit Milliband from your comment?

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the England team selection - I suspect the present selectors/coach are losing the plot - if they haven't done so already.