The Baker's dozen

The England ‘13’ for the first Ashes test contains a couple of curious picks:

Ian Bell: what does this guy have that keeps getting him in the squad? The answer is obvious I suppose: a central contract. It would be an admission of failure to keep not picking him especially after the Vaughan central contract fiasco. Bell’s first class record for Warwickshire this year looks quite good: 8 innings at 79.50. However, those numbers are a little deceiving. He has only made one century and that was way back on April 15th. He made an outing for England Lions last week (or England A as they used to be called) and got a first baller from Lee followed by 20 (from 63 balls). So why would they pick him? Oh yea, the central contract...

Monty Panaser: “go back to your county and take some wickets”. Well he only did the first part of that. Not only did he not take many wickets but a look down the bowling averages makes me wonder if he would be dropped from Northamptonshire’s side. His stats are 8 wickets at 86.7! Surely that would make him unpickable. He did take three wickets for England against Warwickshire last week (batsmen numbers 8, 10 and 11 mind you) and he does have a reasonable record against Australia.

The problem is that both these players were told to go away and get some form. Neither has done that and yet are in the squad – with the suggestion that Panesar will play (even if Bell does not). How can young England cricketers hope to get selected when serial poor performers are regularly rewarded with selection?