The Director of England cricket team Andrew Flower has backed the decision of the national selection committee to select wicketkeeper Matt Prior ahead of Steve Davies in the team for the ICC World Cup 2011.
Davies, who has been a regular member of the team in the One Day International set-up since 2009-10 English summer, finds himself sidelined despite doing a fairly good job in the series against Pakistan as well as in the first ODI against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Flower stated that the focus was to have the best possible English team for the premier tournament that they are yet to win. He added that things have changed since Davies was named in the ODI squad for Australia prior to the 2010-11 Ashes series. Matt Prior performed brilliantly in the Ashes series which proved to be good enough to seal a World Cup berth.
“The circumstances have changed,” said Flower. “Matt Prior did very well out here for the Test matches. He is a combative aggressive cricketer and he fits our aggressive fielding unit. So those are the reasons why he's been picked for the World Cup.”
“It was a tough decision,” Flower added. “We always knew the timing of the World Cup announcement would be tricky. It's not ideal one game into a seven-match series. Steve Davies was picked in our last one-day series in England and he did OK against Pakistan.”
Flowed added that Davies was unlucky to be left out but said that he had a good future ahead of him.
The England team director thinks that Prior would be the ideal man behind the stumps in India, a factor that has gone in his favour is the aggressive make up to his cricket which Flower feels is the brand of cricket that the English team should play in the ODI format.
“We picked him for this series in Australia because of the conditions out here. But as we get closer to the World Cup we've made that adjustment and we want Prior to get a few games under his belt before we get out there so he's going to be arriving in Hobart [on Wednesday],” he said.
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