Nasser Hussain surprised at Gary Ballance's selection over Jos Buttler

Gary Ballance was called up in the England team as a replacement for Nick Compton, who is taking time away from the game after a bad run in the Test series against Sri Lanka. Former England cricketer Nasser Hussain was surprised at the selection of Balance for the upcoming Test series against Pakistan.

“It’s a bit of a surprise selection. Not many people were talking about Ballance this summer and Roland-Jones, to be honest, I haven’t seen a lot of in red-ball cricket, so it is difficult to judge,” Hussain said as quoted by SkySports.com.

He added, “It’s in no way a dreadful selection, but I would have gone differently, I have said that all along. Buttler is too good a talent to have just carrying the drinks or out playing in county cricket. Buttler hasn’t played a lot of red-ball cricket since he was left out of the Test team, and the selectors obviously wanted to go for someone who has. Jos (Buttler) now needs to score a stack of runs for Lancashire, although it looks like he might be injured for a while.

Hussain said that the selectors are showing some continuity with the selection of Balance as he was the reserve batsman in the squad in South Africa. He said, “The selectors are showing a bit of continuity by picking Ballance. He was the reserve batsman in the squad in South Africa, plus he scored a very timely hundred for Yorkshire against a decent Middlesex bowling attack last week. Andrew Strauss and Angus Fraser were there watching that, while Fraser also will have watched Roland-Jones week in, week out, for Middlesex and has obviously seen something in him.”

Also read – Gary Ballance surprised with England call-up

He also pointed out that Scott Borthwick, who scored a whole lot of runs for Durham was unlucky to not make it to the team. “Scott Borthwick can feel a little unlucky to miss out – he has got stacks of runs over a two-year period for Durham and although over the last couple of weeks he hasn’t got as many runs as he would like, I wouldn’t look too short-term. He is obviously a very fine player. But he bats at three, and the selectors might have made up their mind that they want to move Joe Root up to three in the order and therefore that possibly rules him out.”

However, in the conversation with Mike Atherton, he said that Ballance is a fine player but has to sort out some of the issues he is having against left-arm pacers. “Let’s remember, though, that Ballance has a very good first class record, a very good Test record. Plus, the middle order should suit his technique. But there is no hiding place in international cricket, and the last time we saw him he had a bit of a problem against left-armers, and against the very full and very short ball. He will need to have ironed out those issues because one thing is for certain, Pakistan will go at him with the short stuff and the fuller delivery. Plus, they have very good left-armers in their attack, particularly Mohammad Amir,” he signed-off.