On Thursday in two weeks time I’ll be sitting on the Mound Stand at Lord’s watching my first live England test match. I can’t really believe I’ve never been to a test match, but living in sleepy Dorset it’s never proved that easy to get to a test match ground without missing work/cricket/a hangover etc. Still, all that will change as I grace St John’s Wood with my presence to watch us play the West Indies in what should be infinitely more interesting that the dross that was served up in recent months in the Caribbean.

The squad and team selection will be interesting – with the warm up to the Ashes now well and truly on, who do the selectors fancy as those who should be facing Australia, as they will be looking to firm up the selection in this series against Chris Gayle and co. There are some certainties for the team in Strauss, Cook, KP, Collingwood, Freddie, Prior, Broad and Anderson. Swann has shown more than enough for me to stay in the squad as the only spinner, which leaves question marks on the number 3 and another seamer.

Ian Bell has started the county season well which is all very nice for him, but is he really any different to the player that was dropped for consistent failure in the test side? Give him more time in county cricket for me, if his scores are too good in a months time then look at it again, but he has to prove somehow that he deserves another shot at it. Shah was the man in possesion in the West Indies, but he didn’t exactly set the world alight. I rate him as a batsman, but I’m not sure this is the summer for him to cement his position in that spot. Vaughan hasn’t played international cricket since he resigned the captaincy last summer, but I can’t help but think he could be the man for the Ashes. He is a class batsman whichever way you look at it, he knows how to beat the Aussies and could score a hatful of runs. And for those reason, I’m putting my name on Vaughan for the number 3 spot in the team. Get him in for the early test matches to get him back used to international cricket before the main part of the summer, despite how many (or few) runs he scores in county cricket.

The bowling spot is a tricky one without a stand out candidate to my mind. Harmison was so hot and cold over the winter, and is not on the top of his game which is where you need to be against the Aussies. Sidebottom was woefully down on pace as well and seemed to have lost everything that made him a success on his return back into the test side a couple of years ago. The only other bowlers in the ECB performance squad from which they will probably pick are Amjad Khan and Saj Mahmood…. so like I said, no stand out candidate…

Not that I’ve nailed down exactly my squad or team, does anyone out there reckon I’ve got this horribly wrong? Let me know in the comments below!

It’s nearly that time of year again – with the county season starting this week I visited the telegraph fantasy cricket website to see if they were running a fantasy cricket season again. I wasn’t greeted by much other than an image which gave a bit of info on the game, prizes and said to come back this Saturday, 18th April.

Despite losing interest throughout the season, its always fun at the start to pick a side but I’ll have to weigh up whether it’s worth the six quid entry it normally costs! There is a cricinfo fantasy game which I think is free so maybe I’ll give that one a go instead if it looks decent and I can get a few mates into a mini league.

Also, if you are looking for a small county cricket preview I found the opinions on the sky sports website quite interesting to read – head over there to see what Bumble, Athers et all think about the upcoming season here.

Over the Easter weekend I caught my first view of the new England one-day international kit for 2009. Now at first you’ll probably think (like me), didn’t they only release one last year? Well yes, they did – but in these times where a company such as Adidas is on board they are clearly trying to stitch up the public like they do in football by releasing a new kit as often as possible.

Moaning out of the way though – it doesn’t look all that different from the previous kit as you can see in the image to the right. There is a hint more white in it with a new collar and piping, but otherwise it is still the dark blue of the 2008 version (if not even darker than that one).

I can’t say I’ll be buying it myself, but if you want to pre-order you can do so from Kitbag here.

And as if they weren’t going to make enough money out of the ashes, there is also talk of a special England vs Australia odi kit (maybe it’ll have 5-0 or however many odi’s we’re playing written on it already!)