England’s squad conservative and boring

Conservatism – or indecision – won the day when England’s selectors picked their 12-man squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka.

The only change to England’s actual XI will be the replacement of James Taylor, forcibly retired owing to his heart condition, for James Vince, the Hampshire captain who has played four white-ball games for England but will be making his Test debut at Headingley.

Jake Ball, the 25-year-old Nottinghamshire swing-and-seam bowler, might just be a second to make his England debut – if Steve Finn has not sorted out his run-up and rhythm in time. Ball, the leading wicket-taker in the first division of the Championship this season with 19 wickets, has the attributes to succeed James Anderson and become a wrecking ball. “Building on his success with the Lions in the winter, Jake has impressed with the ball and shown excellent control and skill in the opening matches of the County Championship. If selected, we are confident he will perform very well at international level,” James Whitaker, the chairman of selectors, said.

But the promotions of Ball and Vince, who made a century against Yorkshire at Headingley earlier this season in circumstances that were as close as could be to a Test rehearsal, were widely predicted. The retention of Nick Compton was not.

Compton began his second stint in the England side with a match-winning double of 85 and 49 in the first Test in South Africa that started on Boxing Day.

He was at his best as wickets tumbled, he soaked up the pressure and gradually turned the tide of the match and series – albeit with a bit of assistance when Dale Steyn left the field with a painful right shoulder, never to return.

Thereafter, Compton was ever more careworn as he sought the Test century that would nail down his place, and ever slower.

This is not what England’s head coach Trevor Bayliss, brought up among the strokemakers of Sydney, expects from a top-order batsman. And by the fourth and last Test of the series, at Centurion, such was Compton’s state of mind that when he nicked a ball from Kagiso Rabada – as so many England batsmen did as South Africa won a face-saver – he called for a DRS review when it was no thin edge. Such was his obsession to succeed and thereby follow in the footsteps of his famous grandfather Denis. This season, in his six Championship innings, Compton has had a highest score of 44 – and he turns 33 in June.

- The Telegraph