England's batting line up

Amazingly, having gone out with a more inexperienced batting squad than usual, England seem to have a number of options with only one more warm up game to go before the 1st Test v India.   Gut feel given the squad that England took with only Joe Root as a specialist opener other than Cook, I though they'd look to move Trott up to open with Bell at 3, leaving 5 and 6 open.   But Cook has emphatically stated that Trott will bat 3, so he must be relieved that Compton made some runs opening today.

Patel and Bairstow have both made great starts to the tour with hundreds, so I'm surprised England closed off the option to have them 5 and 6, but choosing one it presumably has to be Patel given his left-arm spin (3 wickets today won't have harmed his cause).   Good luck to Patel - he's still young enough to have a very long and successful England career ahead of him if he can come good, and he'll be keen to do well enough that he can get a home test eventually!

Strauss on his team mates

A huge amount was made of Graeme Swann's comments about Kevin Pietersen's lack of leadership credentials in his recently released autobiography, and yet any tensions that those words caused were never apparent to any external observer. Perhaps the England team have found that happy blend of honesty and even taking the mickey out of each other that allows sides to build up fantastic morale?

It's a near impossible thing to get right because it's rare that all players can give as good as they get, so invariably "banter" between team mates is something that is enjoyed rather more by some than by others. And if the team aren't careful, one or two players all too easily become the target for the majority of "banter", leaving them feeling a little ostracised.

Interesting then to hear Andrew Strauss - in relatively unguarded mood - make a few comments about his team mates and Chairman of Selectors, tongue in cheek. The whole video is about an hour and twenty minutes so here's a few of his comments I thought were interesting....

Simon Hughes asked Dusty Miller about how Strauss had come to be captain of England and Miller explained how he originally didn't see Strauss as a one day player and he thought at the time England needed the same captain for ODIs and Tests. His view that Strauss couldn't play ODIs changed and that opened things up for Strauss to become captain. Strauss' view (paraphrased): "What Dusty's is really trying to say is that after the Kevin Pietersen / Peter Moores fallout, there weren't many other options".

Simon Hughes also asked if Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott were really as boring as it appeared. Answer, "yes"! Strauss then clarified when asked if Trott participated in the changing room banter or if he was a loner....no, he's not a loner, "but don't let anyone tell you he's a normal bloke because he isn't". Apparently Trott has a habit of walking off to the next tee on the golf course before his opponent has finished the previous hole as he's so wrapped up in his own game, so it's not just batting where he's self-obsessed.

And what of the team comedian Graeme Swann? Strauss likens him to a Mars bar - the first one tastes great and the first time you meet Graeme Swann it's a very enjoyable experience. By the 15th Mars bar you're feeling sick, and continually spending time with Swann makes you feel that way too apparently.

Nice to know the England captain feels comfortable ribbing his team mates a little without fear of admonishment.

Anderson under bowled?

Is there any reason why Anderson isn't getting his full quota of overs these days? I noticed that he looked unlucky not to have bowled 10 overs in the match on Saturday when more expensive bowlers bowled their full quota, but it's always dangerous looking at the stats like that because you don't know who bowled the powerplay overs. I know Dernbach and, to a lesser extent, Bresnan have been identified as England's death bowlers but if that's the case I'd like to see Anderson bowl all his overs at the start of the innings unless he's having an off-day.

In the first match, Trott bowled overs 32 and 34 when England desperately needed a wicket and Anderson was left with an over of his quota left. Today Anderson bowled just 3 overs for 11 as Dernbach and Bresnan bowled 5 and 4 respectively, and went for 1o an over. I wasn't watching or listening but any clues as to why Anderson didn't bowl at least 4 overs, if not 5?

Trott can look back on a successful World Cup

Amazing (I think) that at this stage of the World Cup, Jonathan Trott is the leading run scorer. He continues to surprise people and there's no doubt he's been England's one success story in this World Cup. His strike rate is 80, but imagine what it could have been with better support from those around him, rather than having to hold most of England's innings together.

This piece by Duncan Fletcher sums things up for me - he compares Trott to Kallis, which in itself is a huge compliment to England's number 3, with Kallis being one of the all-time greats.

England shaping up poorly for the World Cup

Before The Ashes some people were worried that England's preparation was too smooth and of course they went on to dominate the series. Quite the opposite has happened in the run up to the World Cup. The side that is playing these matches has only one or two of the likely bowlers for the World Cup. Both sides are playing on wickets where even slower ball bouncers are in danger of being given as wides for getting too high, where as the wickets for the World Cup will be slow and almost certainly low. So the only advantage to be taken is one of positive morale and England have lost the huge positivity that came from The Ashes win...imagine if they'd had a good break before the two World Cup warm up matches and gone there with fresh players, many of whom were recent Ashes winners and/or World Twenty20 winners?

Instead, England will go to the World Cup jaded and low on confidence after a drubbing from Australia. So are there any positives to come from the incredibly drawn out series of ODIs in Australia? Possibly two.

First, Jonathan Trott is batting sensationally and has proven that he can bowl three or four overs without being a liability. But that's only possibly a positive because it remains to be seen if the confidence he will have going into the World Cup will translate into runs given that the wickets will be almost exact opposites of the Australian wickets he's been successful on.

And second, England may have realised they can play Collingwood as a bowler batting at seven who can be relied upon to bowl his 10 overs just as much as any of the other bowlers. He was England's most economical bowler in the 4th and 5th ODIs and, although that stat doesn't always hold up these days with some bowlers bowling nearly all their overs in powerplays and others not bowling any powerplay overs, he's certainly bowled well. As long as England play on grounds with normal size boundaries, England should have confidence in Collingwood as a bowler, knowing they can get a few overs out of Trott and Pietersen if necessary (and understanding that those guys are just as likely to be needed to fill in for one of the "bowlers" as Collingwood).

Do those possible positives outweigh the negatives? Not at all. If England really had to play 7 ODIs (not to mention two Twenty20s) then they needed to play them over a far shorter period of time and get home for a rest before heading to the World Cup. Winning or losing, 3 days was never a sensible amount of time to return to the UK for.

And what of Australia? They have the positive morale from winning of course, but they also have a couple of other positives - Hastings has found his feet and Michael Clarke has come good. But they also have the problem that form on Aussie wickets may not translate to form on slow sub-continent wickets, and one of their key bowlers - Nathan Hauritz - is now a major injury worry. So there will be positive noises of course, but Australia could have also benefited from a shorter or non-existent ODI series.

I wonder if there are odds on England playing a seven match ODI series the next time they visit Australia?

England's ODI side

It seems strange that Alastair Cook isn't around to open the batting in the ODIs given his form, but I think I'd be wanting to find a way of getting England's second best batsman from The Ashes into the side if the Australian ODIs mattered at all. With Bell back, Trott doesn't have a natural position in the side if Davies opens and the best short-term side might be Strauss, Trott, Bell, Pietersen, Morgan, Collingwood, Davies, Bresnan, Swann, Shahzad, Tremlett (given that Anderson isn't available).

But with the World Cup coming up in the sub-continent it will be interesting to see if Trott gets a look in. Class player though he is, there may be a suspicion that slow low wickets may mean that Trott will find it hard to score quickly. If they're single-mindedly preparing for the World Cup, perhaps the side might end up being Strauss, Davies, Bell, Pietersen, Morgan, Collingwood, Yardy, Bresnan, Swann, Shahzad, Tremlett.

It will be interesting to see if Woakes gets any sort of chance to impress. I can't help feeling that Shahzad could be a little expensive in Australia, but I suspect the England management will be hoping that he can get some reverse swing in the middle overs before the ball change and if he can that would be invaluable in Australia and at the World Cup....

Ashes Highlights

If you're struggling for time to watch Ashes highlights, or you don't have Sky or ITV4 then try the ECB highlights....they're only a couple of minutes per session! Long way to go in the series but after day 1, I think it's going to be a thriller. Siddle's day to remember got England 8 down but personally I was a bit disappointed the way England gave their last 2 wickets away - if we lose by twenty runs they may regret that. Especially Anderson who - despite successfully pulling off a reverse sweep before his dismissal - was choosing a risky shot against the spin instead of playing the percentages.

(That's not to say Bell didn't play brilliantly apart from the occassional swish when batting with the tailenders, including the shot he got out to, but I don't understand why the established batsman is so often the man to get out).

The good news is the starts that a number of England players got - Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell will hope to convert starts to centuries in future. It's possible that the Aussies will bat England out of the game tomorrow - and yesterday certainly wasn't a good start(!) - but it wouldn't surprise me if this turns out to be a very close Test completed on the 4th day....

Cook's decisions

Interesting to see that the first LBW shout to Alastair Cook was shown to have hit the inside edge within seconds by hotspot - I thought one of the objections to using that to help umpires was that it took too long.

Then he was given out by one that looked at first glance on TV to be going over the top and so Hawkeye thought too. No UDRS - more wrong decisions than is necessary.

Trott will no doubt get out now but he's looking quality early in his innings!

Few thoughts on the Newlands Test

1) How is Daryl Harper still employed as an international umpire?

2) Noted in a previous post, AB De Villiers is no saint when it comes to cheating.

3) Graeme Smith declared too late. Surprisingly, not a lot has been said of the timing of his declaration, which I find odd, as England were never going to chase anything above 350 runs and with an extra 20 or so overs, Smith would have had a third new ball at his bowlers' disposal.

4) Of the fifth bowler options available for England at Cape Town, why is Trott being chosen ahead of Pietersen, who I feel should bowl more, and Bell,who isn't a bad medium pacer but seems to be forgotten amongst the part-time bowler options?

England's possible heros

No, I'm not suggesting they can win it after the last hour yesterday (although before that I was thinking that if they could get through the 2nd new ball only 4 wickets down or less, they had a decent chance).

No, now it's about dour defence. So I'm going for 3 key players, and sadly we'll know in the morning session how they're doing as they are the current pair, plus Collingwood. Yes, if Anderson can play out an hour or more of the morning session, I think it could have a big psychological impact on the game, and Trott and Collingwood are the key batsmen given the match situation.

An an Englishman, I have my fingers crossed but I can't say I'm hopeful!