Broad up for the Test - the one-day doubts can wait

Stuart Broad is concentrating on the start of an arduous Test programme involving 16 Tests in a year when New Zealand roll up for the first Test at Lord's on Thursday - some of them presumably with flight tags still tied to their bats - but at the back of his mind will be a creeping uncertainty about his one-day future.

Almost unnoticed during the official traducing of Kevin Pietersen, Broad has been replaced as England's Twenty20 captain. That has encouraged the impression that Broad might struggle to remain a fixture in England's one-day sides, leaving a central role in the 2019 World Cup in England a distant ambition.

Strauss, England's director of cricket, prefers to recognise the growing affinity between the 50-over and 20-over games and has therefore opted for Eoin Morgan to take charge of both formats. As for Broad, four World Cup wickets in Australia and New Zealand at 63.50 and a batting approach that has disintegrated, even extending to an admission of nightmares about being hit by a short ball, and his place is far from secure.

Broad, though, has no thought of winding down and concentrating on a future - a very busy one at that - as a Test specialist. A World Cup in England matters.

"I certainly want to be a part of that," he said. "World Cups are very special, especially in your own country and I feel I have things to offer in white ball cricket still, at the age of 28. But it is such a busy year with the red ball that you can only look at that in the months to come.

"It's disappointing to lose any sort of captaincy especially an England captaincy but the way Andrew Strauss spoke to me was like how Straussy does: he was logical, he had thought out all his points and he made a lot of sense.

"He potentially sees a slightly different make-up in the white ball / red ball teams and Morgs would be a good man to lead the one-day and T20 stuff forward in that, having played a lot of cricket around the world in that format.

"I fully agree with him. I think Morgs, although he didn't score the runs he would like to in the World Cup 50-over, he led the team well and he had the respect of the team in the changing room and I wish him all the best in taking that team forward."

For the next few months, though, it is a New Zealand Test series followed by the Ashes, with Broad already revelling in what he called "the pantomime stuff" as every Australian cricketer who gets near a microphone speculates about how England will be debilitated by the controversial exclusion of Kevin Pietersen and former Australian captains, Ian Chappell on these pages among them, wonder if Alastair Cook can possibly survive the summer as captain.

"It's what the Ashes is about - this hullabaloo," said Broad, who had to withstand a fierce media assault on England's last tour of Australia as retribution was taken for his butter-wouldn't-melt failure to walk for a thick edge in the Trent Bridge Test. "I have grown up with the pantomime of the Ashes. It's what fans want to hear - Glenn McGrath predicting 5-0 wins, Warne naming players he wants to get out. It's what the Australians do. I don't know if they think it builds their confidence or whether it takes chunks out of England's confidence.

"It's not something we comment on, it's not in our culture particularly, but I do enjoy the pantomime. But cricket isn't played with words is it? It's not played in the media, it's played on the field and we will only find out whose tactics work when those Investec Ashes are lifted at the end of the summer."