Ali is currently more or less undroppable as he is probably in England’s top 6-8 batsmen plus a match winning spinner with some regularity. If his batting continues to drop off as it has in recent times and perhaps a couple of other batsman stand up so he drops out of the top 8 batsman England have, he then is measured purely on a spinner basis. In which case a different answer maybe arrived at to the question that wasn’t asked…

Just on Moeen, i also feel that Foakes batting below him at 8 is incorrect. Foakes has a better record in FC cricket and looks to my eyes currently a better long term bet as a 7.

We’d rank the middle order specialist batsmen as Root, then Buttler, then Bairstow at the minute. If you can only fit two in, Bairstow wouldn’t make the cut.

Unspinfriendliest is an excellent word.

I like spin though.

So are you both now in agreement?

Is the solution to make Buttler a non-playing vice captain in ‘English Conditions’

or do his 30s & 40s become even more valuable, when the conditions are loaded in favor of bowlers ?

Does there exist any scenario at all, where Buttler can be dropped?

…now Virat Kohli is talking about “not crossing the line…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/46451725

Actually on that central question, Leach v Rashid, I think my answer is that more often than not it would be a case of “neither or both”.

But on those occasions when it was a straight trade-off between the two, I would pick Rashid, largely for your reasons.

Moeen Ali is inked in to the team sheet in my book for the same reason as Stokes and (possibly, not yet proven) Curren – a genuine all-rounder – in that he is worth his place as a batsman and regularly takes wickets.

Simples.

Gosh I’m feeling fresher today – am I really going to waste this rare burst of sharp thinking on mere work for most of the day?

So your answer to the Leach v Rashid question is, for the most part, neither?

We could again argue that the less bowling the spinner is likely to do, the more England would primarily need wicket-taking cameos from such a person – this is the crux of our point really – but we can’t bring ourself to make any sort of case against Moeen Ali.

OK, I’m fresher this morning and now can articulate the bit with which I disagree.

The reason I think the issues are conditions-dependent is because there are many occasions where the combination of ground and atmospheric conditions bring seam/swing bowling to the fore and thus make six bowlers a luxury…or to put it another way, runs ground out by batsmen who have sufficient technique to cope with pace bowling at a premium.

I’d suggest that is the case at least 2/3rds of the time for tests in the British Isles, perhaps half the time in South Africa/New Zealand/West Indies and 1/3rd of the time in Australia. I agree that your theory works most of the time in Asia.

So (in my view) at least half the time you really do want/need the nation’s best six or seven batsmen in the side. We have an embarrassment of riches because, on that criterion, Stokes, Curren and Ali might all qualify as batsmen at the moment.

Foakes might be proving himself also to be an exceptional bat, but is as yet unproven in all conditions…as are the whole of the top three.

The West Indies might bring some clarity to the selection process, as might injuries as discussed before.

And if all else fails, there is always the hat, KC, as you have so articulately argued previously. 😉