As you have no doubt noticed, this blog has a new theme! I got a bit bored with the old one and wanted something that looked a bit fresher and different.

Things may shift around a bit for the next week or so whilst I return everything that existed on the old theme, and if there is something you think I should include let me know!

With just a couple of days left before the first test, the makeup of the first XI for England will be at the forefront of the selectors thoughts – so in Tell Your Story Walkin’ honoured fashion here is my XI!

Openers – Vaughan and Cook. Speaks for itself really, with the lack of Strauss in the touring party, these two WILL be the openers.

No 3 – Bell. Has had a good history in this position, and despite being pushed down the order a bit when Strauss was in the team and Vaughan was at 3, he should have no problem picking it up again.

No 4 – KP. No more words needed. Has failed in the first warm up game but this is his position and he is the main player who can hurt the Sri Lankan’s

No 5 – Collingwood. The one day captain in the middle order, around to stiffen things up if we lose a couple of wickets, he is used to this position. We may also need to call on his medium pace bowling.

No 6 – umm.. err..

No 7 – Matt Prior. It could also have been Mustard who kept well in the one dayer’s but I’m going with the slightly more experienced player, telling him to have a good series or not be disappointed when he is dropped in New Zealand.

No 8 – Stuart Broad. With the uncertainty over Harmy and Anderson, Broad will be needed as a bowler firstly, and he can also bat at 8. Big things being asked of him here but I think he can handle it.

No 9 – Ryan Sidebottom. Despite my worries in the English season, he was brought into the team and to be fair, did very well. He deserves to stay in the side, as long as he is fit. Sri Lanka have some top quality left handers and he will hopefully be able to get some good movement away from them.

No 10 – Matthew Hoggard. Took wickets in the warm up games and looks fit and raring to go. Give him first use of the new ball and hope to pick up a couple of early wickets!

No 11 – Monty Panesar. Our best spinner, and in the first game I would play only one spinner which means Graham Swann missing out. Depending on his success though, I may bring in Swanny for the following tests.

You may notice a No 6 slot empty. I can’t decide who should be here – we really miss Freddie when he isn’t around! It is between Shah and Bopara – Shah in my mind being the better batsman, but Bopara offering a bit more with the ball and at only 22 is one we want to bring on in the future. We don’t necessarily need the medium pace of Ravi Bop, but he was given the new ball when Harmy and Anderson pulled out of the warm up game which suggests they are seriously looking at using him. I can’t call it.

I’ve not included Harmison with the uncertainty over his back, and despite Anderson being passed ok after pulling out of the warm up game he loses out to Broad. Broad offers more with the bat, otherwise we are uber-weak in the lower order. If we decide to play two spinners in this or any other game on the tour, expect Swann to come in at 8 for this third seamer, but I’d want to see how we fare first with just the one spinner. If things turn out that it’s an unexpected dustbowl we can call on KP who is a better bowler than he seems to get the chance to show.

So there is my 11, it may be wrong and it may fail hideously, but it is my 11 as new England selector! How does your’s differ and who would you put at No 6?

In a bore draw equivalent to a Bolton vs Derby football game, England drew their first warm up match in Sri Lanka. On a pitch that wasn’t just a road, more a motorway – both teams just batted and batted, although England’s players each retired once they felt they had had enough of a hit.

Is this kind of warm up game really any use to anyone? The batsmen don’t really get a workout as its all to easy, the bowlers slug their guts out and use up a load of energy for no reward. The poor people watching it must have been bored – even the players were so bored they spent a lot of the time looking at venomous snakes in the grass! Sri Lanka had a couple of players playing who I can’t believe weren’t with the test team in Australia. Players like Tharanga and Dilshan will be pushing for spots in the test side, and a good performance against us probably didn’t do them any harm.

Things aren’t looking great for Harmy in the lead up to selection for the first test on 1st Dec, his boots didn’t turn up in time, and when he did bowl he didn’t have much success. I’m thinking his spot is under real pressure, and the selectors may choose to go with Sidebottom and Hoggard with Broad as the third seamer. But there are options, which is a good thing and will hopefully mean that all the bowlers up their game if they are given the chance.

We shall see what happens but the cricket world has taken a back seat in the media with all the goings on around the English football team. I’m not even going to start to talk about that as if you thought I liked moaning about cricket, I’d have a field day with the football team at the moment! I guess at least with us not in the Euro Championship next summer, at least cricket should get a bit of back page coverage!

There are two, one-sided test series going on out there at the moment, and despite them not involving England I’ve been watching quite a lot of action from the games. The first one involves Australia battering Sri Lanka and the second is South Africa making mincemeat out of New Zealand.

Intrigue on how Australia would cope without the three stalwarts Langer, McGrath and Warne didn’t last long as the answer became very clear very quickly – they cope very well indeed! Australia have SO many good players that losing three of them seems to have made very little difference at all. Langer’s replacement Phil Jacques has already been scoring runs for fun, and Brett Lee has taken on the wicket taking mantle from McGrath. Warne’s replacement, Stuart MacGill, has not set the world alight but sometimes you just don’t get the chances in such a team. He’s taken some wickets and definitely looks like he’s taken the mantle of team pie eater.. (hence why the picture in this post shows him!)

Sri Lanka have failed pretty badly with the bat, and they also made a bizarre choice leaving out Malinga in the first test. But they are not at the races, and Murali hasn’t been bamboozling the Aussie batsmen how he sometimes does. It all looks pretty ominous for the rest of the test playing nations when Australia look this good.

South Africa have been the other team playing very well at the moment, although I’ve watched less of this series. Kallis has continued scoring runs for fun, whilst the Kiwi’s bowling looks woefully short of quality, and that was even when Shane Bond was fit in the first game. When he pulled up injured there was very little quality backup and the series never looked like being anything other than a whitewash in favour of the South African’s.

Interestingly enough, both the teams on the wrong end of results in the above two series are the two teams England play against this winter. Although Sri Lanka and New Zealand will obviously be on home turf as opposed to currently being away from home, we should get a good idea of where England are compared to two of the better test playing nations. My thoughts are currently that the Sri Lankan series will be the hardest of the two, but we should look to get at least a drawn series if not a winning one. New Zealand on their showing the past couple of weeks, are a team there for the taking and if we don’t win in the series against them I will be very disappointed. Still, that wouldn’t be anything new for an England fan!

I let out a little chuckle when I read this today, and I fully expect some of you to do the same when you hear that potentially we will be watching pro’s playing one day cricket with pink cricket balls from 2009 instead of the current white balls.

When you first read about it, it does seem a little ludicrous, but the more I think about it I don’t see why not. White was picked as it would supposedly stand out against a number of backgrounds, but there have been so many problems with the balls losing the “whiteness” that now after 34 overs the ball gets changed anyway in international cricket. So why not try something else, with the hope that the colour will last better, the ball will be able to be seen against the night sky ok and just as importantly, show up well on tv. Although why stop at pink – how about an illuminous yellow?! Something similar to Chelsea’s away kit would work well if you ask me!

If you know anyone that wants to send me a trial ball, get in touch and send me one and I’ll give it a review!

I’ve not done a post recently on the 2008 gear coming out at the moment, and there is a lot to get through it seems! I’ll try to keep up a bit more with them in the next few weeks so you know what to start saving up for! Slazenger is the focus of my attention today – after I saw Michael Clarke’s bat looking pretty sweet.

Despite saying that, you can’t buy Clarke’s bat for a couple of reasons – slazenger AUS and GB are separate entities, and two – he isn’t exactly a household name over here. His bat still looks nice though! Slazenger havn’t been the most exciting brand over the last few years, and 2008 doesn’t look like its going to buck the trend. A slightly updated look has been applied to the bats, and the names have been changed but the profiles look the same and you wonder if there is actually anything “new”.

What used to be the SE is now the “Pro blade”, the SXI becomes the “Pure blade” and the SX is renamed to be “Power blade” and they are shown in the image above in that order left-right. Still, if Bell has another top season like last year and Collingwood does ok as one day skipper it should help them shift a few. So not the most exciting, and not top of my list but no doubt they will be for someone!