Shane Warne - never short of an opinion or two, especially regarding English cricket. In the wake of the depressing England captain saga, Warne has suggested that official replacement Andrew Strauss would be better suited to the vice-captaincy position and that he would have chosen Kent captain Rob Key as skipper for all three formats of the game.
Key, who hasn’t played a Test for England since 2005, has impressed in recent years through his one-day captaincy and was an outside contender for the England position before Kevin Pietersen was appointed.
Warne said, “He has flair and imagination, a good temperament and is well liked within the game. Ideally, you should look to appoint one captain for all forms and I don’t think that Strauss deserves a place in the one-day side on merit.”
He has a point. Strauss last played a one day game for England back at the 2007 World Cup (in the West Indies, ironically) and hardly deserves a guaranteed place in the limited overs side. He lacks the firepower neccessary for an opener in one day cricket and to have him coming in down the order may get in the way of the established players like Andrew Flintoff and Owais Shah.
However, the support for Key may be misguided. He is a fine player, yes, and definately has the potential to play for England again but captaincy seems a tad premature for Key. His success with Kent was mainly in the Twenty20 format of the game however, as impressive as that was, his side’s performances in the four day game left much to be desired. It would say a huge deal for the state of the game if England were to pick a captain on the strength of his Twenty20 skills.
Where does Strauss fit in to the one day squad then? Thoughts and comments, please.
(article for The Corridor (http://www.cricket.mailliw.com/))
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