England widen the net

England have taken so many leaves out of Australia's book in recent years that they have plagiarised the entire volume, but the latest copycat act in their bid for world domination is one that will raise a few eyebrows. The stand-out member of the 17-man squad to tour Pakistan, which was unveiled at Lord's this morning, is a 36-year-old spinner and Hampshire captain whose zenith arguably came in the mid-1990s.

Shane Warne has spent the best part of the summer demonstrating that age should be no barrier when you are unequivocally the best man for the job, but as David Graveney, England's chairman of selectors, tacitly suggested, Shaun Udal's recall to the England squad, owes more to the shortcomings of others than to his own irresistible form. Eleven long years after he sunk without trace on England's Ashes campaign of 1994-95, Udal's figures of 36 wickets in ten first-class matches this season is worthy, but hardly world-beating.

To be damned with such faint praise has long been the lot of the English spinner. Nasser Hussain's favourite moan, in the latter years of his tenure, was that his attack suffered from a lack of "mystery" when compared with the wiles of Warne and his contemporaries from the subcontinent. And following the Ashes defeat at Lord's in July, Ashley Giles hit back at his innumerable critics after being singled out as the scapegoat by an exasperated media. Giles has "done a job" for England ever since his breakthrough tour in Pakistan five years ago. Now the search is on for his support act.

Having used just 12 players during the most gruelling two months of their professional lives, England will now be taking 17 players (not to mention the coaching and support staff) on a three-Test tour that spans little more than five weeks. If that smacks of overkill, then perhaps that is precisely the point. For the first time in a generation, England know what their first-choice XI should be. The next task is to identify a pool of reserves that can cement England's position at the top of the Test tree. And for that purpose, the selectors are willing to cast their net as wide as possible.

Aside from the 12 who played this summer (plus England's perpetual understudy, James Anderson) the squad is completed by four debutants - Udal, Chris Tremlett, Matt Prior and Alex Loudon - which tells its own story. Tremlett was a shoo-in, having been named as 12th man for the first four Ashes Tests, while Prior has been waiting in the wings as Geraint Jones's understudy since the start of the season, when he overhauled Chris Read as the best of the rest. Loudon's emergence, on the other hand, has been rather more meteoric.

Until last season, Loudon was plying his trade as a decent batsman and part-time offspinner for Kent, but one quick transfer to Warwickshire later, and he has emerged at the forefront of the next generation of English spinners. His pedigree as an England cricketer-in-waiting is impressive - in his time he has been captain of both England Under-15s and Under-19s - but like Udal, he could never have imagined that such a modest county haul (26 wickets at 41.00) would land him such a plum reward. The fact that he has a fledgling doosra in his armoury is probably sufficient reason in itself to send him on the trip.

It is unlikely to be a glamorous winter, however, for the lot of the English reserve spinner is often an unrewarding one. Never mind Udal's own experiences in 1994-95, the list of near-misses for this winter's trip reads like a Who's Who of the county treadmill. Graeme Swann (South Africa 1999-2000), Richard Dawson (India and Australia 2001-03) and Gareth Batty (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa 2003-05) were all considered but cast aside, with Graveney unusually frank about their shortcomings: "Regrettably their performances during the summer have probably been disappointing for them," he told reporters at Lord's.

The lot of the spare-part seamer is hardly any better. Liam Plunkett's inclusion in the one-day squad is a tacit admission that both Kabir Ali and Jon Lewis have fallen short of the required standards, destined to join a pile of rejects that includes Richard Johnson, James Kirtley, Martin Saggers and Alex Wharf. As Australia have shown this summer, it is one thing to have a world-beating first eleven, but it is quite another to have a squad sufficiently flexible to cover all eventualities.