Bell in line for Test despite Shah's surge

England's team for the final warm-up match against West Indies A, should have come as no surprise. Ian Bell will bat at three, Owais Shah will be at six, but is in the team only because Andrew Flintoff's side strain has ruled him out, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

In the first warm-up match of this tour, Owais Shah scored a studious unbeaten century, Ian Bell compiled pleasing innings of 36 and 52 and was dismissed both times offering daft catches. In the one-day series in India at the fag end of last year, Bell made 84 runs in four innings, Shah made 236, more than any other Englishman. In his last 10 Tests, Bell has made 188 runs. Shah has made none simply because he has not played …

… The inference is startlingly clear: Bell, despite his poor run, will play in the first Test, starting in Jamaica next Wednesday and possibly the second, third and fourth. Shah, despite his continual good form, will yet again not play if Flintoff is fit, which thankfully has begun to seem likely.

With only one three-day match before the first Test, which starts in Jamaica on Wednesday, the England selectors have some tricky decisions to make in the next few days, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Principally, attention will be focused on Ian Bell and Owais Shah, who are again in the odd position of being team-mates and rivals, and James Anderson and Stephen Harmison, who, from reading the runes set out by Flower yesterday, appear to be in competition for the final seam-bowling place.

In the Times, Mike Atherton writes about how St Kitts has changed since his last visit to the island 15 years ago.

St Kitts was a sugar island then, rather than the tourist destination it is now. The cane fields have largely disappeared and where there was scrub before, a huge, garish Marriott hotel stands, serving waffles and fry-ups. But with this “progress” has come violence and now St Kitts and Nevis has one of the highest murder rates in the world: 23 last year alone out of a population of only 46,000. There is a sullen, anxious edginess that I do not remember previously.