August
04, 2008
Kevin Pietersen has been named as the New
Captain of the England team. The 28-year-old will be leading
England in all forms of the game. The change of captaincy
comes a day after Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood had
announced their resignations as the Test and One Day Captain
respectively. Pietersen has some experience leading his
country when Collingwood had suffered a ban during the New
Zealand One Day Series.
Pietersen's Test Captaincy Debut will come
during the fourth and final Test against South Africa at The
Oval which begins from the 7th. The entire cricketing world
will be watching whether the Captaincy role affects
Pietersen's
batting or not. Although he entered the
international arena very late, Kevin Pietersen has quickly
gone upto a phenomenal level in the cricketing world because
of his exhilarating batsmanship. KP can easily be called as
one of the best batsmen in the world currently and bowlers do
get intimidated by his sheer presence in the middle. And
England will be hoping that his natural attacking game doesn't
disappear because of the Captaincy burden which happened in
the case of greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.
England have also named their squads for the
final Test and also the One Day Squad for the Series against
South Africa. Michael Vaughan had opted out of the last test
and his place has been taken by Ravi Bopara. The One Day Squad
has an uncapped player in the 23-year-old Samit Patel, who is
a hard-hitting right hander batting in the middle order. Samit
Patel plays for Nottinghamshire and he also rolls his arms
with some useful left arm spin. Samit was also a part of the
England U-19 team a few years back. Another notable inclusion
is that of wicket keeper Matt Prior, who replaces Tim Ambrose.
England Squad for 4th Test :
Alastair Cook,
Andrew Strauss,
Ravi Bopara,
Kevin Pietersen (Captain),
Ian Bell,
Paul Collingwood,
Tim Ambrose (Wicket Keeper),
Andrew Flintoff,
Stuart Broad,
James Anderson,
Ryan Sidebottom,
Steve Harmison,
Monty Panesar
England Squad for One Day Series against
SA : Alastair Cook,
Luke Wright,
Ravi Bopara,
Kevin Pietersen (Captain),
Owais Shah,
Ian Bell, Samit Patel,
Paul Collingwood,
Matt Prior (Wicket Keeper),
Andrew Flintoff,
Graeme Swann,
Stuart Broad,
James Anderson,
Ryan Sidebottom,
Chris Tremlett
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