The England squad has been announced for the Test against Ireland and Ben Foakes might as well give up or come and play for the Barnes Sunday Strollers. He’d get a game. This is a shocking selection, though not in the sense that it is unexpected. Foakes always seems to be the dispensable one, no matter what he does.
Foakes has kept wicket superbly for England. He is the best wicket keeper in the world. He has a first class batting average of close to 40, which is just about what he has given England with the bat since Stokes and McCullum took over. He started the season with a big undefeated hundred and averages over 50 with the bat for Surrey. Yet he is the one who has to make way for the returning Jonny Bairstow. The selection suggests there is nothing Foakes could have done to stay in and that is a terrible principle for picking a team. No matter how poor the opening batsman and no matter how good the wicketkeeper, we have already made our mind up.
The return of Jonny Bairstow is, in itself, fair enough. There is every reason to find a place for him in the team. With the emergence of Harry Brook, that simply required a bit of creative thinking about the order of the batting. One of Bairstow, Root, Brook or Stokes had to be prevailed upon to go in first. Maybe Stokes could have followed the example of one Brendon McCullum and moved himself up the order, especially as he is not likely to be doing much bowling. The best option remains for Bairstow to open. That way they could have picked the best players and shown some imagination. It would have involved taking a risk at the top of the order, but isn’t that what the new regime is all about?
Oh, and Dan Lawrence is no more the next best batsman around than I am.
Ben Foakes exclusion is a shocking endictment on the selectors lack of judgment. It demeans the importance of wicket keeping, surely one of the pivotal position in a team and assigns it to a less capable individual, who although competent, is not of Foakes' class. Why omit the best keeper in the world from your team, to enable a mediocre, if sometimes languid opener, to maintain his spot?! He must feel very hard done by. After all, this is not the first time he has been treated this way. Very disappointing.
Why is this article not entitled “For Foakes’ Sake”?