England’s pre-Ashes squad was announced today and there were two main things – No Harmy or Vaughan, and the inclusion of Rashid. On the first point, I said a while back I wanted Vaughan in the side, but he’s been playing county cricket without playing well enough to force the selectors to pick him in the squad, and Bell probably deserves his place in the squad. Harmy has done well, but I fear him letting us down on countless occasions when we expected big things from him has gone against him. Rashid coming in is exciting – he showed promise in the Twenty20 and it could be argued to give him a go ahead of Monty and alongside Swann. Monty has definately dropped down the pecking order over the last twelve months, maybe paying the price for not being multi-dimensional enough, but he gets a chance in the Lions team to play Australia prior to the first test.

I was impressed with the returning Sidebottom in the Twenty20, bowling with good pace and aggression which suggests his immediate injury problems are behind him. I still struggle to see him getting in the side though with Anderson, Broad, a fit Freddie and debut sensation Onions in front of him. Nothing too much to discuss on the batting side – its probably quite settled with Prior at 6, Freddie at 7 and Broad 8 in the lower middle order for me and I’d be quite confident going into the Ashes with that line up.

In just over 2 weeks time it’ll be time for the talking to finish and the action to start, I can’t wait…