We’ve had the standard county championship game start this month, and now it is time to mention the next fantasy game the telegraph have on the horizon – the fantasy Twenty20 World Cup game!

It costs four quid to enter a team, which you can do at http://fantasycricket.telegraph.co.uk with a top prize of £5k and another £5k in other prizes, the tournament starts on the 5th June so you want to have entered by then. Although I didn’t enter a county championship team in the end, this game will probably entice me to play since I only have to keep in touch with it for a few weeks rather than a whole season.

I havn’t looked at any of the player lists yet, so let me know who you think will be the standout players in the tournament in the comments below to help me pick my team!

A comprehensive test series win over the West Indies sets us up nicely for the rest of the summer, although I think its safe to say that we won’t get too ahead of ourselves. We showed that we lost the dull series in the Caribbean earlier in the year mainly due to the pitches out there which offered absolutely nothing and that we are in fact a much better test match side than Chris Gayle’s men.

49 or so days until the first Ashes test which will be the real test of the summer, and hopefully we’ll have some good weather and media buzz around it. We still have an ODI series and Twenty20 World Cup before then, which will give players like Bopara the opportunity to continue his good form, but aside from Flintoff’s recovery I reckon our test match side is probably sorted for the first test at the Swalec Stadium on July 8th (hopefullly Prior’s fingers will be ok after Collingwood had to take the gloves in the last test!)

The Aussie squad has been announced to some discontent down under – I’ll reflect on that in another post in the next week or so!

Lords last week showed a promising start for the slightly new-look England side, defeating the West Indies within 3 days with a strong performance. Yes, it was a shame for all those that had tickets for a Saturday but we often have Wednesday starts these days with all the international cricket that need to be fitted in so I’m not bothered (especially as I saw the best day live!).

There were good performances in particular with the bat from Ravi Bop and Swann, whilst Swann also performed with the ball, as did newcomer, Graham Onions. I was questioning who might be our final bowler the other week and Onions has made it difficult for anyone else to jump in there by showing some good pace and getting the all important wickets. Bresnan didn’t really have a chance in the whole test, which makes you wonder the wisdom of a five man attack when Freddie isn’t around. That’s probably why they’ve bought Bell back into the squad for the next test, it gives them the option of using four bowlers then if they need them, Ravi and Colly can turn their arm over. It’s probably the way I’d go without a standout replacement out there.

The other thing the early finish to the match gave us was Sky Sports re-showing the 2005 Ashes series highlights, brilliant viewing for any England fan and the thing that came across most was that Shane Warne was by far and away the most threatening players the Aussies had back then, even with the likes of McGrath and Lee in the side. Now, with no decent spinner to talk of, I’m feeling more confident that we can do a number on them and claim back those Ashes this summer. Foolhardy thinking maybe but I’m going with it for the moment!!