Sellsy's Sunday Supplement - on a Monday!

England’s one day form seems to ask more questions than ones being answered, after another away drubbing, this time 5-0 by India, in India. The all of a sudden they have a comfortable T20 win against the same opposition, why?

England are ranked No. 1 in both Test cricket and T20 cricket, plus they are the current T20 World Champions, but they just cannot get it together in ODI’s, especially abroad. Michael Vaughan, to his credit, summed it up quite nicely, we prepare green pitches at home to make it friendly for our seamer’s to get results at home and when we go abroad, we come up against different pitches, i.e. India full of spin and in Australia, pace and bounce.

If we have any ambitions of winning the next World Cup we need to get ready now and prepare pitches in our country which will be like the ones in Australia and New Zealand where it will be staged in 2015.

Andy Flower has already indicated that there will be changes in the ODI side, in both the batting and bowling department, plus the fielding needs to be sharper (three things fundamentally wrong with English one day cricket – they can’t bat, can’t bowl and cant field, to quote a infamous article written by Martin Johnson).

The first thing I would look at is the wicket-keeping position. Somerset’s Craig Kieswetter currently has the gloves and to be fair, he has a bit of a torrid time behind the timber dropping catches, missing a run out, only his batting (just), has kept him in the side, but can you afford to drop catches.

Jonny Bairstow, another keeper, is also in the side, with Jos “one of our own” Buttler travelling with touring party. Surely this hasn’t helped Craig putting adding pressure on him to perform. The answer – make a decision on who’s number one and for how long, and then take the pressure away from him, by not selecting other keepers.

I can also see this problem happening at Somerset, even Marcus Trescothick says he is dreading the day when Jos will come up to him and says that he wants to be first choice behind the stumps. An abundance of riches perhaps?

Batting – a lot of questions, Kevin Pietersen is one, another is Ian Bell, were do England play him? Can England afford to have Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott in the same side? Why is Ravi Bopara still playing for England? Surely there is a better batsman / bowler than Samit Patel. I could go on, loads of questions and not enough answers.

Bowling – Will James Anderson still feature in four years time when the next World Cup I upon us? Can they afford to take a risk on him? He was rested for this tour to India, and it shows how sorely missed he is. My view is that he needs to play in 2015 and lead the attack, so resting was a good decision, but we need him to keep playing ODI’s, as I can’t see much else at the moment, apart from Tim Bresnan and Steve Finn (both have shown a bit of character during this recent series, with Bresnan being fined for his conduct).

After this series against India, England have a rest until next year then they go to the middle east and play Pakistan in four Test matches, four ODI’s and three T20. Then onto Sri Lanka just for two Tests, so let’s see who is selected for what and where. Might come up with my own ideas for next week!

Last weeks AGM was fairly quick, lasted about 90 minutes, and I would like to congratulate Steve Easden on becoming the nest 1^st XI captain, with Neil Buller stepping up to vice-captain. Carl Woodley retains the 2md XI captaincy, with Dave “Rabbit” Rowsell talking over as his vice. Well done to you all, looks like a fresh young set-up.

Ok, a bit late this week, been away in Sheffield all weekend. Has anyone heard of a MCV? Well on the train journey up to Sheffield, the announcer on the train said about refreshments can be obtained from the MCV or Mobile Catering Van! Couldn’t believe what he was hearing, so when he came round to inspect tickets I had to ask.

The explanation, it was just him and a coupe of colleagues chatting in their canteen about the news that they were getting rid off the buffet coach and they are to provide a hostess trolley, however the management didn’t want to call it a trolley as it sounds too much like a supermarket. These guys took it on themselves to rename it a MCV just for a crack and he thanked me for listening to his announcement: “at least some one does” he said!

Anyway, it’s 5.10 in the morning, time for work, back to normal next week!