Testing times as Strauss returns to one-day fold

Andrew Strauss returns to one-day cricket for the first time in almost two years against West Indies with the added responsibility of captaincy, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Quite simply, the captain has to be worth his place in the side as a player. There is no room (or ought not to be), as Michael Vaughan ultimately found out, and before him Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, for a captain just to maintain continuity. This is not to say that Strauss cannot adapt. His absence from the team after the World Cup, was predicated in part on his own basic decline in form that has taken 18 months to rectify

Andy Flower's good relationship with Andrew Strauss should not disguise England's failings against West Indies, writes Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian.

I've said before that the England coaching role is the top job in world cricket because of the scrutiny you come under and the expectations involved. I find it odd that the England and Wales Cricket Board needed to employ a firm of headhunters to get their man, but now that's the case you would imagine an impressive CV would be one of the chief requirements. I know Flower has worked a bit with Essex, but surely the ECB are looking for more than that. I may be wrong. Flower may be worth a gamble. But the facts are that England have so far struggled against a pretty ordinary side out in the Caribbean. If by the end of the one-day series there are still no signs of improvement, it would feel very strange indeed to name Flower as coach.