The Surfer

Flintoff has been included in the Twenty20 squad on the assumption that he recovers from knee surgery but national selector Geoff Miller indicated that plans are in place should Flintoff not be ready, so the management’s faith is not absolute. That faith has not been absolute for some time and it must have occurred to them that the Test team might be better off without him. To consider this claim we need to take into account not only Flintoff’s performances with bat and ball, but also what he brings to the dressing room and how much appetite he has for Test cricket. There has been speculation that he might quit Tests for the riches of Twenty20 cricket sooner rather than later.

It is improbable but the hint of their intentions was there last Wednesday in the dozen names. England have at their disposal two spin bowlers, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. In England, in May. The idea that both could make the final XI, and one must, is faintly ridiculous. England simply do not play two spinners unless one of them can also bat properly.But they may yet do so here partly because the Test pitches at Lord's in the last few years have given scant assistance to anybody, slope or no slope, and partly because there is the suspicion they might just have a strategy in mind for later in the summer.

Ramnaresh Sarwan was Man of the Series when England lost 1-0 in the Caribbean earlier this year, scoring more than twice as many runs as the next West Indian, with three centuries and a 90 in his six innings. England will not avenge their defeat if Sarwan is also the man of the two-Test series which starts at Lord’s on Wednesday.

At the mention of KP, ­Chanderpaul's face grows very dark. On the recent West Indies tour Pietersen took a swipe at him, accusing him of "playing for himself". It was a comment that Chanderpaul did not take lightly.

"The Ashes is a major reason that I didn't go to the IPL and a major reason why anyone plays for their country," he said. "You can make history. People have a passion for the Ashes and I think to the nation it's the most important thing in the cricketing world. It's the pinnacle. Beating the West Indies at home is brilliant but beating Australia gives massive national pride.

Clarke has hardly put a foot wrong with his captaincy. The acting skipper has kept team spirits high despite the pressure they faced after being skittled by Pakistan's spinners in the series-opener to continue what had been a disappointing recent one-day record. He has had to manage pacemen being rotated in and out of the side on spin-friendly pitches and draw the best from a squad with numerous stars on the comeback trail and several other players new to international cricket.

It isn't as if the pitches are rock hard and adding momentum to the ball. In fact sometimes they cause the ball to stop a bit, lose pace but nip around off the seam. As a result the old philosophy of sight the ball once and hit through the line isn't exactly working. You might argue that Gilchrist and Gibbs and Jayasuriya and Tendulkar are still doing quite well but the answer to that might lie beyond the surface and in their pedigree. Young Indian openers are discovering that there is a world beyond and their education hasn't yet taken them there. Good strikers of the ball like Swapnil Asnodkar, Karan Goel and even Sreevats Goswami in the early part of a fine innings against the Knight Riders looked uncomfortable with the ball gaining height on them.

As a result, the organisers — who have a host of monetary problems to tackle in the middle of a global slowdown — have at least been saved the trouble of worrying about media management. The only time anybody was on the back foot in this tournament was when the Fake IPL Player rattled the Kolkata administration with a witty, fictional account of the inner rumblings of a confused IPL team. In a country that likes to boast about a strong, vibrant, free press, that’s not something for us to take pride in.

The batting, which is thin, picks itself. Simon Katich and Phillip Hughes to open, Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke to follow, with Haddin a certainty behind the stumps. Beyond that the picture is more muddled. While Marcus North is the frontrunner for the No.6 spot, he could find himself in the mix with Watson, Symonds and Andrew McDonald for three spots in the touring party and later, perhaps, jostling for one or two places in the Test sides.