Pick Shah and bat him at 5

Strauss of course tells us that the latest warm-up was a good workout, but I'm not sure the various journalists out there have the same view, particularly when it came to England's lousy fielding. But on the positive side, there are key batsmen in form (particularly the skipper and ex-skipper) and the bowlers have had plenty of time to find their rhythm.

Shah apparently got a dodgy decision to be dismissed for 9 LBW, but Bell played a terrible pre-meditated sweep to be bowled round his legs towards the end of day 2. For me, the time has come for Shah to replace Bell (if it hadn't before) - if he's good enough (which his technique suggests that he is) Bell will make stacks of runs at county level and then come back a better player. I'd also - much as I hate to admit it - listen the Geoff Boycott's view and bat Shah at 5, Boycott of course having said that anyone that thinks Owais Shah is an international number 3 needs their head read. That allows our best player, Pietersen, to come in at 3 and dominate the match, and it also allows Collingwood to bat at 4 and be entrusted with getting the side a big score. One of the decisions that Moores got wrong was to push Collingwood back to bit-part number 6 when most of his success has come from batting high up the order with Pietersen. At 4, Collingwood averages 56 and I think we should settle for that.

The bowling looks a little less predictable, but I'm glad that the prevailing view seems to be that Sidebottom will play. England have looked rudderless without him as there is no-one else apart from Flintoff who the captain can expect to keep the runs down if we're not taking wickets. I trust Flintoff is happy he'll be there and I suspect the spinners will be, given that they may be able to use the rough he creates. But which spinner will it be? Personally I'd go for Panesar, but there's very little in it given Swann's improvement and Panesar's relative decline of late. So you'd be left with the side:

Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood, Shah, Flintoff, Prior, Broad, Sidebottom, Harmison, Panesar.

Suprised I picked Harmison? Yes, so am I! But he has to be given the chance to relive his former West Indian glories and Anderson hasn't done enough to take the place ahead of him....