A Letter From Pakistan - England Forced To Opt For The Untested

Like many English cricket fans the only thing I knew about Alastair Cook before today was that he had scored an impressive double century for Essex against Australia on a good batting pitch. Cricinfo.com only have a single 126 word paragraph for him in their database of 45,000 officials and players.

His first class batting average is 43.5, which is good but not phenomenal. However, it should be noted that he won this year's Young Cricketer of the Year award and since its introduction in 1950 only six winners have retired from cricket without ever having played a Test.

The list of England squad members who have never played Test cricket has now swelled to five, with only Shaun Udal likely to make his debut on Saturday. I would certainly have preferred the recall of an experienced player, instead of the selection of another young hopeful, but with Robert Key injured there was no obvious candidate. The promising young Surrey batsman Owais Shah, who won the Young Cricketer of the Year award in 2001, was also unavailable through injury.

To finish on an oxymoron, a surprise choice was inevitable.