England's newish look

Collingwood, Pietersen, Strauss, Collingwood. They are the England Twenty20 captains over the last year. I know Twenty20 is a shortened form of the game but four captains in a year? I say four because of course the last Collingwood on the list must be a different one to the Collingwood that resigned nine months ago. Picking a captain who has recently resigned because it affected his play would be silly. I think you can guess where this is going...

What is even more strange than Collingwood being made captain again is that there is no obvious other choice. Twenty20 is the new cricket cash cow and everyone is raving about it – so why does England struggle to even find a captain? The fact that Collingwood has only been appointed for the three week World competition is pretty telling – he is a fill-in -- for a World event on home soil! Bizarre. Of course some people will say Rob Key should have got the job, but picking a guy who has never played International Twenty20 cricket is just too far out even for the ECB.

The really big news is that Ian Bell and Michael Vaughan are back in the Test team, who would have predicted that (eh Danny)? I am kidding (for the first Test anyway), in fact they have both been left out along with Steve Harmison. Quite right too, even though I hear Vaughan is hitting it beautifully in the nets... Ravi Bopara has been given the number three position which he deserves after his century in Bridgetown. Onions and Bresnan are also in the Test squad and let us hope they both get a game – in early May you really would expect only one spinner to be played and so presumably Panesar will miss out. An unexpected May Test recall against the West Indies two years ago was the making of Ryan Sidebottom, Onions and Bresnan will be looking to take their chance next week.