Will Monty Panesar make the cut for the one-day series? © Getty Images

Tomorrow England announce a squad for the one-day series. Monty Panesar is widely expected not to be in it. He hasn’t played a one-day international yet, and he would be a bit of a gamble as he has played hardly any one-day cricket for his county. But the same was true of Simon Jones when he became a first-choice one-day player for England in 2005. And Monty, like Jones, is something special.

He is a wicket-taker, and an inspiration. Matthew Hoggard, writing in today’s Times, says England need more of Monty’s attitude. A contributor to this blog, Ian, has described Monty as a talisman, which is spot-on. He has some of same the qualities – spark, enthusiasm, appetite and enjoyment – that Andrew Flintoff has, when not carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

England’s one-day team is in a mess. They have two big problems: getting bowled out, and not taking wickets. Jamie Dalrymple has come in this year and done well as a bits-and-pieces player, showing a strong temperament and getting some revs on the ball. But as yet he isn’t a strike bowler: in 14 games his best is two for five, and his strike rate, 52 balls for each wicket, is as modest as Ashley Giles’s. Michael Yardy, picked alongside him in the Champions Trophy, is another tidy bits-and-pieces player, a natural understudy to Dalrymple rather than a foil.

	Flirting with balance: allrounderless for the first two Tests, Australia have called up Andrew Symonds for the third © Getty Images

Australia abandoned the policy before the first Test, when their allrounder, Shane Watson, pulled up lame. They reverted to six batsmen and four bowlers, and it has mostly worked a treat. The sixth batsman, Michael Clarke, has made runs, and the fifth bowler was missed only on the first two days at Adelaide, when England tucked into Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne as never before. Now, following Damien Martyn’s sudden retirement, the Aussies are flirting with balance again by bringing back Andrew Symonds as their allrounder.

England went ahead and played a balanced side – or tried to. They picked five bowlers and six batsmen, with Andrew Flintoff as the pivot, just like in their glory years of 2004 and 2005. But it hasn’t worked out like that. The balanced side has been a fantasy.

With an overloaded Flintoff going in at six and an out-of-form Geraint Jones at seven, the batting has been brittle. Each time Flintoff has batted after a bowling stint, he has flopped. He has been his old self only in the first innings at Adelaide, when he made a breezy 38 not out in a no-pressure situation. His struggles are confirming the simple truth that no man can do three jobs on a cricket field for any length of time.

At his best as an allrounder, in 2005, Flintoff was visibly giving his all for England. Once he was captain as well, on the toughest tour in the game, something had to give. It was his batting. He managed some captain’s innings in India, but since then he has been scoring like a tailender: five Tests, 103 runs, average 17. His strike rate has plunged from his usual merry 70 to a wary 49. He has managed a few fours and sixes, but the ones and twos have dried up. It’s block, bash and usually crash.

So England have really only been picking five batsmen. And they certainly haven’t had that many bowlers. At Brisbane, three of them were liabilities – Steve Harmison, Jimmy Anderson and Ashley Giles. At Adelaide, all three were picked again. They improved to the extent that their three wickets cost 368 instead of 485. None of them has managed even a two-for so far. This England side is balanced in only one sense: the batsmen and the bowlers are both liable to go to pieces.

The silver lining here is that the selection has been so wrong that both suits can be strengthened at once. The most pressing need is for a third bowling banker – someone as dependable as Flintoff and Hoggard. There is only one candidate in the tour party: Monty Panesar. Not because he is a saviour or a panacea – those are just labels. It’s because, on the evidence of recent Tests, he is steady and occasionally deadly. Only three men have taken a five-for for England in the past year – Hoggard, Harmison and Panesar.

In 2006, Monty has 32 wickets in ten Tests at an average of 32 and a strike rate of 75. Giles has six wickets in four Tests at an average of 84 and a strike rate of 157. Go back to Giles’s last 10 Tests and he has 17 wickets at 67. Compared to Monty, Giles offers half the wickets at twice the price. The gulf between them is there in every column of their stats, even the maidens – Monty bowls 10 per Test, Giles only four. One builds up pressure, the other releases it.

	'In 2006, Monty has 32 wickets in ten Tests at an average of 32 and a strike rate of 75. Giles has six wickets in four Tests at an average of 84 and a strike rate of 157' © Getty Images

Good citizen though he is, Giles is never picked as one of four bowlers, which is revealing. It’s a tacit admission that he isn’t good enough. He is a fifth bowler. In the last Ashes, that was all right because Flintoff and Simon Jones were forming a little dream team as third and fourth seamers. Since then, Giles’s bowling has been like his batting: marginal. England’s four victories since the Ashes (not counting the Hair forfeit) have all come without him – and with Panesar.

If Flintoff and Fletcher finally accept this and leave him out, what happens to England’s balance? Not much, as long as they also accept that Flintoff himself isn’t able to operate fully as a batsman. So he moves down to seven, with Ed Joyce coming in higher up (hell of a time to make a debut, but England didn’t have the sense to pick anyone with experience, and Joyce does have plenty of talent). This leaves Flintoff as one of four bowlers, which is a risk, but not as bad as having only five batsmen for a must-win Test.

It means Paul Collingwood – mysteriously untried so far – and Kevin Pietersen will have to bowl some of Giles’s overs. With Panesar taking the rest, the net result might even be a profit. England’s attack will then be Hoggard, Flintoff, Panesar and one other. This could be Harmison, though it would be an act of blind loyalty. Or it could be Sajid Mahmood, who has pace, bounce, movement and the knack of getting good batsmen out. He just doesn’t have consistency. The normal caveat about him is that he is expensive, but he can hardly go for many more runs than Anderson has (4.78 an over). It would be a less balanced side only on paper. In practice, it would be better-equipped to climb the mountain that England now face.

	Shane Warne: the best Test captain Australia never had © Getty Images

1 Andrew Strauss
Justin Langer could have one last fling in him, but Strauss is a similar model, only younger. A taste of captaincy did him good: after only 30-odd Tests, he has the presence of someone with twice as many. Has two Ashes hundreds already and power to add with his neat back-foot game.

2 Matthew Hayden
Could have been dropped for the Oval 2005, but instead he survived, made a watchful hundred, and was soon back to his old bullying ways. Alastair Cook, on the other hand, has his work cut out not to be this year’s Ian Bell.

3 Ricky Ponting
In the form he was in a year ago, he is the best batsman in the world today. Against England, over the years, he has been mortal, averaging 40 rather than 50, but that may just mean he is overdue a big Ashes. Just don’t make him captain.

4 Kevin Pietersen
Edges out the revitalised Damien Martyn because he is one of the world’s two most gifted batsmen under 30, along with Virender Sehwag. Front-foot technique could be fallible, but his outrageous chutzpah should bring at least a couple of big scores at high speed.

5 Michael Hussey
In one-day cricket, he is the new Michael Bevan; in Tests, he’s far better. Nothing wrong with Paul Collingwood, but Hussey has the same resilience with more dynamism.

6 Andrew Flintoff
One of only three men present to have made the difference in an Ashes series. A colossus in 2005, he walks into this team, but no need to lumber him with the captaincy.

7 Adam Gilchrist (wkt)
Neither of the wicketkeepers demands a place in this team. Gilchrist had a poor Ashes in 2005 and has kept on struggling since, while Geraint Jones did pretty well then but floundered afterwards. Gilchrist wins because of his destructive possibilities – if he has even a half-decent series, it’s hard to see Australia losing. And you wouldn’t want Jones keeping to this man…

8 Shane Warne (capt)
The best bowler on either side, and in recent Ashes history. He really should have been a Test captain. And in this team, he can be. Suddenly, the field placings and press conferences will get a lot more interesting.

9 Brett Lee
All the fast-bowling spots are debatable, and you might even include someone here who is not expected to play in Brisbane, such as Shaun Tait. Lee’s Ashes record is one of more pace than penetration, and he is in the curious position for a genuine quick of being more adept at one-day cricket than Tests. But he was back to his best last Australian summer and he’s a natural foil to McGrath as well as an exceptional number nine.

10 Matthew Hoggard
There’s a case for Steve Harmison’s pace and bounce, or even for Monty Panesar’s skill and potential. But for the past two years, Hoggard, despite looking typically English, has been England’s best bowler overseas, with 50 wickets at 26. Flintoff is only just behind, with 47 at 28, while Harmison’s figures are the other way round – 26 wickets at 47. Simon Jones would have got this spot if fit, but Hoggard has added guile to his swing and could surprise a few people.

11 Glenn McGrath
Picked on reputation rather than anything he has done since Lord’s 2005, which may turn out to have been his last great hurrah. On one hand, he’s elderly, rusty, and may struggle to get through five days. On the other, he still has four of the qualities that made him great – awkward bounce, pinpoint accuracy, an intimidating presence, and a supreme will to win.

So that’s my team, with seven Aussies and only four Englishmen. What’s yours?

	Watson promises much, but will he deliver at Test level © Getty Images

The Australian selectors have decided on their strategy for winning back the Ashes: being more like England. They will play four fast bowlers in Brisbane, just as England did for most of the 2005 series. It’s a case of imitation being the sincerest form of assault and battery.

To make their foursome look even more fearsome, the Aussies have included two spares. Their 13 contains no fewer than six quicks – Lee, McGrath, Clark, Johnson, Tait and Watson. It’s a lopsided squad, with no spare batsman, no Stuart MacGill, and no doubt at all about the first nine places, down to Brett Lee. In fact, if the return of Glenn McGrath is a sure thing, the only doubt is about the third seamer – one of Shaun Tait, Stuart Clark, and Mitchell Johnson. The options come down to a three-way tussle for a single place. One thing is certain: the Aussies’ drinks will be delivered at high speed.

On paper, this is a stronger Australia than the team that surrendered the Ashes. There is no link as weak as Gillespie and Kasprowicz turned out (unexpectedly) to be. Mike Hussey is in a different league from Simon Katich. Watson is a slight improvement on Michael Clarke at number six. Clarke’s contribution in 2005 is often overlooked – he and Damien Martyn put together Australia’s only match-winning partnership, in the second innings at Lord’s – but he did fade after that. And Watson is a proposition unique in Australia’s recent history: a high-scoring batsman who is also more than a medium-pace bowler.

There are two doubts about Watson. Can he do it at Test level? The answer should be yes: he is coming into his prime. And will Ricky Ponting remember to bowl him? Not so sure about that one. In his three Tests so far, Watson has had only 31 overs. A four-man attack gives a captain six possible pairings, while the fifth bowler bumps it up to ten. Michael Vaughan played those ten cards masterfully in 2005. This year’s captains, on both sides, may not be so adept.

Australia have picked a strong squad that might have been even stronger if MacGill and Phil Jaques had been there too. My guess is that England will be happy to see the devil they know. Last time they contained Langer, Hayden and Martyn, and even began to get on top of McGrath. The sight of McGrath’s name on the team sheet, which once spread alarm among opposing batsmen, now brings mere respect. But if the first day is a crazy pressure cooker, as in the last two Ashes series in England, he is just the man to keep cool. Australia are right to have him back in the squad.

Whether Clark, his shadow, should be there is more arguable, skilled as he is. If he makes the final XI, and both the wild cards, the incisive Johnson and the new, improved Tait, are left out, England will heave a private sigh of relief.

	Joyce: gifted, but uncapped © Getty Images

The gamble on Marcus Trescothick backfired badly, but that hasn’t stopped the selectors taking another one. The experience they gave Rob Key (15 Tests, four of them on the last Ashes tour) and Owais Shah (one highly successful Test in India earlier this year) has been binned. The idea of maintaining a clear and logical pecking order has gone with it.

The thinking seems to be that they need another left-hander, and that Australia’s pacy pitches will suit Joyce, with his strong eye and fluent strokeplay. He is Ireland’s answer to David Gower, and Gower was certainly at home in Australia, hitting nine international centuries there. With Trescothick goes a chunk of England’s flair: they now have a batting line-up that includes two old-school grafters, Cook and Collingwood. The choice of Joyce offsets that. He may even be tempted to go up in a Tiger Moth.

But it still feels like an interesting selection rather than a convincing one. England were already hurling inexperience at the wily veterans in the Aussie attack; as Rob Smyth pointed out yesterday over on the Guardian site, not one of England’s revised top six has played an Ashes Test in Australia. Three of them – Cook, Bell and Collingwood – could be fairly clueless facing Shane Warne. Can England really afford to be without Shah’s excellence against spin?

The decision also unbalances the batting order, leaving England with only two players who are comfortable in a Test top three, Strauss and Cook, along with three number fives (Collingwood, Pietersen and Joyce) and two number sixes (Bell and Flintoff). They may have to use Matthew Hoggard as nightwatchman in every innings.

	'Pietersen and Flintoff made runs – together, for once' © Getty Images

On Friday, after the little debacle against the Prime Minister’s XI, I wrote that England needed at least six players – ideally Flintoff, Trescothick, Pietersen, Hoggard, Harmison and one of the keepers – to do well against New South Wales. Today, two thirds of those wishes came true. Pietersen and Flintoff made runs – together, for once – and Hoggard and Harmison polished off the NSW lower order the way international new-ball bowlers are supposed to. That’s as many pieces slotting into the jigsaw as a touring team are entitled to hope for in one day.

Trescothick remains a big worry. If England had to name their Brisbane team now, they would surely be better giving him more time to find his touch and sticking with all three of Cook, Bell and Collingwood. Trescothick is being picked at the moment on past glories, not for anything he has done in the past year.

On the Jones-Read decision, I’m keeping my powder dry till tomorrow, when my Cricinfo column appears. But it wasn’t the only selection issue settled over the weekend. Duncan Fletcher also disclosed that Jimmy Anderson would be the fourth seamer for Brisbane, ahead of Saj Mahmood and Liam Plunkett, who is making an early bid for forgotten man status.

Anderson’s rapid return provokes mixed feelings. In terms of skills, he is the best choice. He is closer to the finished article than the mercurial Mahmood or the anodyne Plunkett. Anderson is a Brisbane type of bowler, using an old-fashioned full length to get conventional swing at useful pace. But he is still feeling his way back from serious injury. And so is Flintoff, good as he is looking at the moment, and so is Giles. If Fletcher seriously wants to play Giles ahead of Panesar, England are going to have an attack that is three-fifths rusty. That’s a lot of rust to put your trust in.

	Played one, lost one © Getty Images

Interest in the Ashes is running so high that England’s opening tour match was shown on television back home. Half-way through this afternoon’s highlights, the signal went on the blink, before packing up altogether. As a comment on England’s performance, it was eloquent.

The game could have gone worse, but only if a senior player had fled the ground in distress. England lost to a virtual Australia A side by a margin that was not so much wide as insulting. More importantly, not a single selection issue was cleared up.

The only man to make runs was Andrew Strauss, one of the two batsmen (with Kevin Pietersen) who are certain starters on November 23. Nobody took wickets; nobody was even economical, and Saj Mahmood was comically expensive. Geraint Jones held a great catch, but dropped a straightforward one, and when he batted he settled for survival, facing 41 balls without locating the boundary.

England’s handling of the game raised questions which Andrew Flintoff doesn’t seem to have been asked in his post-match interview. Why did Monty Panesar bowl only three overs? Spinners, more than most bowlers, need plenty of bowling. Yet Paul Collingwood, who is unlikely to play in the first Test, let alone bowl, was given a full ten overs.

Why didn’t Ian Bell, a near-cert for the Tests, play ahead of Collingwood? Why did Jimmy Anderson, a relative long shot, play ahead of Steve Harmison, who urgently needs to find some rhythm, and Matthew Hoggard, who hasn’t played for two months? We had been told that all those who missed the Champions Trophy would feature in Canberra, but Hoggard and Liam Plunkett didn’t.

On the plus side, Flintoff managed ten overs at good pace, and only got carted in the last one. Ashley Giles managed eight overs. Collingwood mounted another of his clean-up acts – though this one, paradoxically, muddied the waters. Mahmood showed gumption with the bat, which is becoming a habit. And nobody broke a bone.

The defeat isn’t a big problem in itself, but it cranks up the pressure on England for the two remaining warm-ups, which could be a blessing in disguise. They need at least six players – ideally Flintoff, Trescothick, Pietersen, Hoggard, Harmison and one of the keepers – to do well against New South Wales in the match starting on Sunday. And as England are planning to use all 16 of their party, the first challenge will be to make sure that those six are on the field for long enough to make an impact.

	Panesar could miss out to Giles © Getty Images

Duncan Fletcher said yesterday that England have got to play five bowlers in the first Test, because Andrew Flintoff isn’t fit enough yet to be one of four. Which makes sense. He also dropped a heavy hint that Ashley Giles would be one of the five, and Monty Panesar wouldn’t. Which makes no sense at all.

Fletcher explained that he wanted control. Well, Panesar offers more than Giles does. He goes for about 2.6 runs an over in Tests, while Giles, over the past two years, has gone for 3.3. It’s a perfect illustration of how attack is the best form of defence. Despite being possibly Test cricket’s most defensive slow bowler, Giles is actually less good at defending than Monty, who prefers to attack.

Fletcher wants Flintoff not to overbowl himself. Well, Panesar will bowl more than Giles. Monty bowls 40 overs per Test, Giles 31 – and that’s making no allowances for the fact that Giles is returning from a long lay-off. So if Giles plays, at least nine more overs will have to be bowled by the seamers, who are more expensive than Monty.

Fletcher (presumably) wants wickets. Monty got more this summer than any other England bowler. He took 27 wickets, Matthew Hoggard 25, Steve Harmison (who missed three Tests) 20, and Flintoff (who missed four) 12. Monty’s strike rate in the summer was 62 balls per wicket. Giles’s has recently been 92. Giles takes two wickets per Test, Monty three to four. Unless the ball swings for Hoggard, it’s fair to say that with Harmison out of sorts and Flintoff feeling his way back, Panesar is the England bowler most likely to get good batsmen out.

Fletcher is in danger of repeating the mistake he made in the last Ashes series, when he picked Ian Bell ahead of Graham Thorpe on the grounds that Thorpe could no longer bat at number four, and therefore had to compete with Kevin Pietersen for the number five spot. This line of thinking presumed that Bell was ready to bat at four, which he wasn’t.

This time, Fletcher is thinking: Brisbane is mainly a seamers’ pitch, so the spinner needs to offer control, so we can take the more defensive option. And this is leading him into a double fallacy. First, as shown above, Monty offers better control. Secondly, the best form of control is taking wickets. Shane Warne takes plenty at Brisbane. Even Giles took some there four years ago. On all the evidence, Monty would take more, for fewer runs.

Against that, he would cost runs in the field and with the bat, but then so do many good bowlers. Alastair Cook doesn’t bowl, and is not a great fielder, but that’s no reason to replace him with a bits-and-pieces player. Giles has sterling qualities as a team man, but if England really need those on Nov 23, they should play him as a second spinner, ahead of the fourth seamer, Sajid Mahmood. It would be an unusual move at Brisbane, but England did it in 1986-87 (with Emburey and Edmonds), and that was the last time they won there.

Monty has made the first slow-bowling slot his own. More than that, as Warne says, he has made England a better team, which is a remarkable feat for a man still in his first year of international cricket. Michael Vaughan has said that England have to attack if they are to beat Australia again. Monty is a weapon they can’t afford to be without.

	Will MacGill, the world's most gifted understudy, play on the big stage this winter? © Getty Images

How many bowlers does it take to win a Test series? The question is so fundamental that you would think there would be no argument about it. But the best team in the world isn’t sure what its answer is.

In the Ashes of 2005, Australia played four bowlers every time, as they had throughout their long years of walking all over England. In the first Test, the strategy worked, but then it quickly fell apart. England set out to bully one or two of the four, so that there were always weak links, starting with Mike Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie. The Aussies saw the problem to the extent of replacing Gillespie with Shaun Tait. But they didn’t see that the real problem was having only four bowlers. The sixth batsman they were so keen to acccommodate, Simon Katich, wasn’t making many runs. To English eyes, it was obvious that they should drop him, along with a dud seamer, and bring in an allrounder, probably Shane Watson, and a second spinner, Stuart MacGill.

It didn’t happen. MacGill, the world’s most gifted understudy, has still not played a Test in England at the age of 35. But as soon as the Aussies got home, they had to pick a team to play the ICC World XI, and sure enough, in came Watson and MacGill. Watson played only a small part – the fifth bowler isn’t needed when the opposition just roll over – but MacGill gobbled up nine wickets. Watson has missed most of the year since with injury, but is now fit and, judging by the recent one-day series in Malaysia, has resumed his upward arc as a hard-hitting batsman and feisty medium-pacer. He is only halfway to the full Flintoff, but that’s enough to make Australia stronger. Not for nothing has Ricky Ponting publicly hinted that he expects Watson to be picked for the Ashes.

If Watson plays, then MacGill can too (assuming he recovers from the injury he picked up at John Buchanan’s boot camp). England, for all their advances under Duncan Fletcher, are still pretty clueless against leg spin. MacGill might well have made all the difference in the last Ashes. The line-up England fans would rather not see at the Gabba on November 23 looks like this: Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Watson, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, MacGill, McGrath.

Tim de Lisle is a former editor of Wisden. His website is
here.

	'One of the easiest Ashes touring parties you could possibly pick' - well, hang on a minute... © Getty Images

Michael Vaughan gave a long interview the other day to the Yorkshire Post. A couple of quotes were picked up as a news story, but the piece is worth reading in full. For a start, you discover where the interview took place: “at the England captain’s luxury £1m villa on Barbados”. Possibly the most glamorous location ever for a Yorkshire cricketer to talk to the local paper.

It’s also worth having a close look at Vaughan’s line on England’s walking wounded. Have England gambled, he is asked, by selecting a number of players for the Ashes who are suffering from injuries, and also by choosing Marcus Trescothick following his personal problems? “Absolutely not,” Vaughan replies. “I spoke to the selectors quite regularly about the squad and it was one of the easiest Ashes touring parties you could possibly pick. There weren't really any tough decisions and the selectors would not have taken any risks on fitness. They must be very, very confident because they would not take risks for such a big series, and although people will always have their views as to whether certain players should be included, the squad is right in my opinion.”

Vaughan is a shrewd character and an outstanding captain, but this is bland, unconvincing, inaccurate stuff. “One of the easiest Ashes touring parties you could possibly pick”: oh, come on. The senior pro is suffering from a stress-related illness.

“There weren’t really any tough decisions.” There what? Everybody knows there was at least one, the tour captaincy, which was settled so late that the eventual choice, Andrew Flintoff, had no hand in the selection of his team. As David Graveney, the chairman of the selectors, put it at the squad announcement: “We have had to make a very tough decision in choosing between Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Strauss for the captaincy.”

Vaughan’s line on the risks being taken is that they can’t be risks because the selectors “would not take risks for such a big series”. Well, they did last time England went to Australia: two of them – Flintoff and Darren Gough. Neither man played a Test, and the upshot was that there was a loud and lusty chorus of Never Again. This time, the selectors haven’t taken two risks: they’ve taken six. There may be good reasons for each one, but Vaughan hasn’t given any.

It’s only a quote, of course, and perhaps Vaughan is as rusty at giving interviews as he is with the bat. But he could have just fended the question off. Instead he came out with vapid assurances that insult the intelligence of his many fans.

	Keeping the faith...or has Fletcher had enough of Read already? © Getty Images

When the curtain rises again on the Ashes, there will be only a couple of characters more central than the England wicketkeeper. Yet we don’t know who it will be, and today, when they could have shed some light on this, the England hierarchy spread further doubt. They handed out annual contracts to 13 players without including either of their touring keepers. Geraint Jones has lost his contract, but Chris Read hasn’t been given one.

So when England take the field at Brisbane, one man will be getting paid less, and offered less security, than nearly all his team-mates, and it will be the man whose role is to be the hub of everything they do. You get the nasty feeling that Duncan Fletcher, a Jones fan, is having second thoughts about switching to Read, even though he has done a great job since his surprise recall seven weeks ago. Read, whose last two Test series have both ended in 3-0 victories – against West Indies in 2004, and now Pakistan – is being treated as a poor relation.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Michael Vaughan and Simon Jones will still be on full pay. Vaughan is an outstanding captain and Jones a matchwinning bowler, but they have now been out for nine and 12 months respectively, and here they are being signed up for another year, at somewhere between £250,000 and £400,000 each.

Loyalty is all very well but England have reached the point where loyalty meets profligacy. They are behaving as if they were a club, and there was a danger of Vaughan or Jones joining a rival team. Yet when there really was such a danger, with the excellent bowling coach Troy Cooley, England did nothing, and he left to join Australia.

The 13-strong list has a strange balance, big on batsmen (seven) and spinners (two), short on fast bowlers (four, none currently fit) as well as keepers. And, like the tour party, it is huge on injuries, with Ashley Giles included as well as Vaughan, Simon Jones, Flintoff and Trescothick. You can see why the selectors didn’t have enough confidence in Saj Mahmood or Liam Plunkett to give them a contract. What is harder to fathom is how they did have enough confidence in some of the others.

When Andrew Flintoff was appointed England captain again last week, it was largely on the strength of the win he led them to at Mumbai in March. Flintoff did it with charisma, inspiration – and music. At lunchtime on the last day, the England dressing-room reverberated to a raucous singalong of Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. More than just a rousing tune, it was also a sly reference to the tummy trouble that many of the players had suffered at one time or another.

In Australia, they will need a different theme tune. But what should it be? Judging by the selection – sticking with the devils they know, picking all available Ashes winners, plus everyone who played in the Tests against Pakistan – the song should be Steady As She Goes by the Raconteurs. It’s stirring, it’s from this year, and it’s the kind of sentiment you can only sing when you’re winning. On second thoughts, perhaps that’s a bit risky.

Another contender, for a side carrying so many injuries, would be another Johnny Cash song: Hurt. Great song, apt lyrics, well quite apt – the references to drugs might be a bit tricky. Similar objections apply to David Bowie’s Ashes To Ashes, the greatest song ever written about space travel, narcotics and the 18-to-30-month gap between England-Australia Test series.

Maybe we’re looking for something more cheerful. Flintoff, who once worked on the record counter at Woolworths in Preston, has a weakness for Elton John, so I’m Still Standing fits the bill. “And did you think this fool could never win / Well look at me, I’m a-coming back again.” It could almost have been written for Ashley Giles.

But these thoughts are just to get the ball rolling. Over to you.

	© Getty Images

There are no new boys
Normally England take an apprentice to Australia – Bob Willis in 1970-71, Phil DeFreitas in 1986-87. But they have had so many injuries this year that boys who might have been new have already got through their first couple of terms. Alastair Cook, Liam Plunkett and Saj Mahmood were all left out of the original Test squad for Pakistan a year ago, and they now have 20 caps between them. It’s still an inexperienced squad, but at least every member knows how it feels to have Test cricket running through his veins.

England have improved since the Ashes…
… in three areas, at least: middle-order batting (nobody is as green now as Ian Bell was then), wicketkeeping (Read is an artist, Jones a journeyman) and slow bowling (same with Panesar and Giles). On the other hand, they have gone backwards in four areas: captaincy (no Vaughan), fast bowling (no Simon Jones), tail-end batting (no journeymen), and fitness (six crocks, rising to seven today if Hoggard’s MRI scan goes badly). Time will tell whether the three areas are more significant than the four, or whether they can turn a couple of them round; their record on that is pretty good.

The Aussies are swaggering again
They are hot favourites at all the bookies. Glenn McGrath is making extravagant claims, saying he is bowling faster than ever at the age of 36. And all over Australia, cricket lovers are firing off wildly bullish emails to unsuspecting bloggers. The talk is of 4-1, as if it was still 2002. The Aussies could go into this Ashes series with just the same blithe over-confidence as the last one.

	Of the eight bowlers selected, only Sajid Mahmood played in the one-dayers against Pakistan © Getty Images

It’s clear what the first team is
Of the 16 names, four look very much like reserves – Geraint Jones, Ashley Giles, Liam Plunkett and, since England seem to be going back to five bowlers, the unfortunate Paul Collingwood. This leaves only one real decision, for the first Test at least: which Lancashire swing bowler to have as fourth seamer – James Anderson or Saj Mahmood. There should be plenty of chunter on the medical front in the early weeks of the tour, but hardly any on selection issues.

Several players are fresh
This is the upside of all the injuries. Of the eight bowlers, two have had the past few weeks off, and three have had months off. Only one, Saj Mahmood, played in the one-day series against Pakistan. Only two others, Matthew Hoggard and Monty Panesar, played in the Tests. Of course, being fresh isn’t much use if you’re not fit…

	Andrew Flintoff: He's up for it © Getty Images

Fred’s up for it
Not content with being a top bowler, fine batsman, ace fielder and decent captain, Andrew Flintoff is also rather good at public relations. He gave great press conference yesterday, exuding bonhomie without veering off into bluster. He looked relaxed, eager, and raring to go. Dammit, he even looked fit.

There’s a proper vice-captain
For some reason, England don’t like naming a vice-captain, but we all know who it is this time: Andrew Strauss. Duncan Fletcher’s captains have a habit of getting injured and England have often got their boxers in a twist deciding who takes over. In 2001, Mike Atherton even returned for two Tests in place of Nasser Hussain, losing them both. Last winter Marcus Trescothick first inherited the captaincy, then abandoned it. For the first time since Nasser was vice-captain to Alec Stewart, eight years ago, England are going on tour with a ready-made deputy for the captain. Strauss has won a Test series as captain himself (unlike Flintoff), and if he is not too sore, he has all the attributes of an excellent no.2 – a cool head, a sharp mind, and a modest ego.

The Ashes squad is out now and my gut reaction is: they've played safe on everything – except fitness. The selectors are gambling on the health of Marcus Trescothick, Ashley Giles and James Anderson. They have picked a captain who isn't fit yet in Andrew Flintoff. My feeling is that they're right about Flintoff, narrowly, as I said here earlier. But overall, they have risked a whole bunch of half-fit players – just as they did for the last Ashes trip, in 2002, And what did everybody say then? Never again.

After this post went up, the nice people at Cricinfo asked me to expand it into a comment piece on the squad, so I did. It's here

	Mark Ramprakash: One final chance? © Getty Images

In today’s Guardian, Mike Selvey says that if there are “any qualms” about including Marcus Trescothick, and the selectors want a player of similar experience, “then Mark Ramprakash, the best technician of his generation with a good record in trying circumstances in Australia, should be included”. And Frank Keating, in his magnificently adjectival back-page column, points out that “stalwart ancients” like Graham Gooch and Geoff Boycott made stacks of Test runs in their late thirties.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins of The Times said on Monday that “one could make a good case” for Ramps. And in the new edition of The Wisden Cricketer, out later this week, David Fulton, the former Kent captain, joins the campaign. Asked if Ramps would be more philosophical and less intense now, Fulton says: “I think so, and I think he’d have a fabulous Ashes tour.” As one of the comments here says, it ain’t gonna happen. But it should.

	Jon Lewis: accurate and nagging, but is he too slow? © Getty Images

In 2005 England’s third and fourth seamers did more than anyone else, except perhaps Michael Vaughan, to win the Ashes. In the three key Tests, at Edgbaston, Old Trafford and Trent Bridge, Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones took 30 wickets between them, while Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard, armed with the new ball, took 17. They never allowed the Aussies off the hook. Now, Jones is a non-starter and Flintoff is not yet back from injury. And this is one area where England’s replacements have struggled.

The reserve fourth seamers, Liam Plunkett and Sajid Mahmood, can be a little flaky. Mahmood has pace and bounce and sometimes swing, but little accuracy. Plunkett has more control but less of the pace, bounce and swing, and his action gets the ex-players tut-tutting. As an international bowler, neither is quite there.

In the one-day series against Pakistan, England had to field a complete second-choice attack – Broad, Lewis, Mahmood, Dalrymple and Yardy rather than Anderson, S Jones, Harmison, Flintoff, and Giles. And they did quite well. Jon Lewis and Stuart Broad, especially, worked as a pairing – one classically English, with his nippy awayswing, the other shaping as a mini-McGrath, with bounce and seam movement. Actually not that mini: at 6 ft 6, he’s still growing. And he is already hard to get away.

Duncan Fletcher doubts whether Lewis is fast enough for Test cricket outisde England, which makes you wonder if he ever saw Terry Alderman or Damien Fleming in action. Lewis is in just that mould – nagging, swinging, testing, non-military medium, capable of outwitting the best players. If Jimmy Anderson is fit, I’d pick him and Lewis. If not, take Broad. But don’t be surprised if the selectors stick with Mahmood and Plunkett, the devils they know.

	'The selectors will be dead tempted to go for Giles, and with good reason, because it isn’t a big risk' © AFP

Ashley Giles’ long-running groin injury turned into a blessing in disguise for England, enabling them to unearth Monty Panesar, who is already a better bowler, even though he is ten years younger. Monty played as the sole spinner all summer, but a second one is needed for Australia, to play one, two, or, at a pinch, three Tests.

Shane Warne has said that he would pick both Giles and Panesar. It’s an appealing prospect: one can bat a bit, field well and bore the odd batsman out from over the wicket, and the other can take out top players with his orthodox ripper. They are both slow left-armers, but there the resemblance ends; as when Langer and Hayden open the batting together, what looks like a duplication would actually be a study in contrasts. But Giles has been out all year, and punts are already being taken on Flintoff and possibly Trescothick: can England afford another? Wouldn’t they be better off with Jamie Dalrymple, who has shown plenty of Giles-like grit in his first two one-day series?

The selectors will be dead tempted to go for Giles, and with good reason, because it isn’t a big risk. The only Test where the second spinner will definitely be needed, Sydney, is the final one. (Even there, England played only one slow bowler last time, and won. Pub-quiz veterans will know that it was Richard Dawson.) Giles, with his street wisdom and stoical demeanour, will bring plenty to what Duncan Fletcher slyly calls the party.

	Geraint Jones: a favourite of Duncan Fletcher's © Getty Images

Test players who are dropped, as Geraint Jones finally was in August, are traditionally told to go away and get some runs in domestic cricket. Jones hasn’t. He is still painfully out of form with the bat, and his batting is what he was picked for – Chris Read, despite a tendency to leave too much to first slip, is a far more natural keeper, and his ability to standard up to medium pace could make Jon lewis and even Matthew Hoggard more potent.

If Jones is named in the squad this afternoon, it will be because he is a Fletcher favourite, althugh also, to be fair, because he made a vital 80 in England’s last victory over Australia. James Foster of Essex, a spirited cricketer who has already been on an Ashes tour and played a Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, has stronger credentials.

A word about Jones's namesake, Simon. A few people who have posted comments here seem to expect him to play in the Ashes. As far as we know, he is out of the whole series. More on the bowlers in a minute.

	Mark Butcher would still be able to fit in with the current England side © Getty Images

England are in danger of gambling on Trescothick’s health because they are desperate to have his experience. They would do better to take a senior player as the spare batsman: either Mark Butcher or Mark Ramprakash. Butcher will fit in easily, as a member of the successful team of 2004, and can be the third opener that every squad needs. Ramprakash, always effective against Australia and now in the form of his life, may bring more runs.

	Trescothick has opted out of the Champions Trophy. Can the selectors then risk him for the Ashes? © Getty Images

Marcus Trescothick is suffering from what the England hierarchy call “a stress-related illness”. He has only recently come to terms with his diagnosis and is still in mid-treatment. Can the selectors risk him? They have accepted that they can’t for the Champions Trophy in October, and I don’t see how they can for the Ashes in November. If Trescothick was in top form, it might be worth the risk, but he isn’t, and wasn’t last time round in Australia (average 26, top score 72). The management just can’t be confident that he will be up to it.

England will miss his genial solidity, his big hands at first slip and his ball-polishing skills more than his batting in its current distracted state. The one-day team perked up immediately when he stepped down, and there are ready-made replacements for him in Tests – Alastair Cook can open, Flintoff should be back at slip. Trescothick needs a break. Give the poor man the rest of the year off and tell him to come back refreshed for the one-day marathon that runs from January to April.

September 6

	'Trescothick's absence won't do England much harm.And his decision lets the selectors off a hook' © Getty Images

Marcus Trescothick has the distinction, possibly unique in a major England career, of never once being dropped. So occasionally it falls to him to drop himself. The selectors, apparently, were planning to include him in the squad for the Champions Trophy in India, even though he has been batting like a lost soul. Not since Graham Thorpe was going through a bitter custody battle in 2002 has an England player been so visibly adrift. He is surely right to take a break and put his health first.

Trescothick's absence won't do England much harm. Like Graham Gooch in the mid-Eighties, he has gone from a pillar of the team to something more ambivalent; England need to see how they can do without him, as they did without Gooch, very nicely, in 1986-87. And his decision lets the selectors off a hook. England may be rubbish at one-day cricket at the moment, but it is strangely hard to break into their top five. Alastair Cook, who had a promising first couple of games in June, hasn't been able to force his way in since. Andrew Strauss let slip the other day, when he himself returned to the top of the order, that the plan was to give Ian Bell a run in the side at No 3, which meant that if Andrew Flintoff was to return as a specialist batsman, England would have had to leave out Paul Collingwood, who is part of the backbone of the team. Now, Flintoff can come in as a straight replacement for Trescothick.

He should even open the batting. He won't be knackered from bowling, the ball won't be seaming around, he will have the chance to play long innings, and this is the time to find out whether he can be something England have never had – a destructive, intimidating opener in the Gilchrist mould. The more sedate types who are really better suited to Test cricket (Strauss and Bell) will be free to play second fiddle, and the only other dasher, Kevin Pietersen, will have to start making big one-day runs again if he is to get the limelight he loves. Then all England will have to sort out is who the hell is going to bowl.

© Tim de Lisle 2006