LONDON, July 29: England announce their squad on Sunday for the second Test against Australia with the players who lost the Ashes opener at Lord’s by 239 runs likely to be given a chance to redeem themselves at Edgbaston. Consistency of selection has been the guiding phrase behind England’s rise to second in the world Test rankings behind Australia and the perils of the opposite approach are clear enough.

England have lost the last eight Ashes campaigns, a run that started in 1989 when an astonishing 29 players were used during the series. Mike Gatting, the last England captain to win the Ashes back in 1986-87, said: “I wouldn’t make any changes. That would be a knee-jerk reaction at this stage. England must now regroup and get some runs.”

Since Lord’s, the only player outside the squad to have advanced his case for inclusion is Paul Collingwood, best known as a one-day specialist.

The all-rounder, whose only two Test appearances to date came in Sri Lanka two years ago, scored 190 and 181 for Durham in the County Championship against Derbyshire and Somerset respectively. Collingwood could well find himself in the 12-man squad on Sunday at the expense of uncapped Hampshire fast bowler Chris Tremlett.

But for Collingwood to play, England would have to drop one of their Lord’s bowlers, with left-arm spinner Ashley Giles and Matthew Hoggard the likely candidates.

Both men were milked for runs, Giles’s 11 overs costing 56 runs and Hoggard’s 24 overs 96 although the seamer did take three wickets.

England though dismissed Australia too quickly in the first innings for Giles to get on and then didn’t give him enough runs to bowl at on a pitch which wasn’t offering a conventional finger-spinner much assistance.

Replacing Giles with Collingwood is a risky move as it would leave England without a specialist slow bowler although it would strengthen the fielding of a side that dropped seven catches at Lord’s.

However, whether his brand of medium-pace bowling, albeit at an often seamer-friendly ground, would be any less vulnerable to attack by an Australian line-up that respects pace duo Stephen Harmison and Andrew Flintoff, but precious few other England bowlers, is open to question.—AFP