My all-time England XI

Who would be in your all-time England XI, well my pick is below. As some of the comments on the Guardian page say you can only really judge from players you have actually seen play. And as i'm not that old my players are from the last few decades.

Atherton
Strauss *
Smith (RA)
Lamb
Thorpe
Botham
Russell +
Giles
Foster
Fraser
Malcolm

Other squad members : Hussain, Flintoff, Hoggard

The future is 40

After much oohing and ahhing and various other formats both traditional and weird thrown about the ECB has decided that the third format in county cricket will be... 40 over cricket! So the Pro40 is not meaningless after all, its the future. I am very happy about this personally as 40 over cricket is an excellent format that is much maligned by the usual suspects. They moan of course that the domestic structure should mirror the international, well we have had 50 over cricket for years but it does not seem to have made us world beaters.

Intriguingly next year's competition will include 21 teams, the three extra teams could be Ireland, Scotland and a Minor Counties side which is very welcome news.

Game of death

The game against Yorkshire starting at Scarborough is (to lapse into footie speak) MASSIVE. Surely the Bears have to win if they are going to stay up in division 1. IR Bell returns after his Ashes glory though Rankin is out injured. Calum MacLeod is back after getting his action sorted out. The squad:

• Westwood *
• Botha
• Bell
• Frost
• Troughton
• Ambrose +
• Clarke
• Carter
• Woakes
• Sreesanth
• Tahir
• MacLeod

Player merry-go-round

In the past cricket squads were quite settled, you might have the odd player change now and then but it was nothing like now with dozens of players rumoured to be making moves between counties. Warwickshire have of course been linked with every player recently bar WG Grace (who i believe is going to the Pears). A number of players are rumoured to be leaving too such as Tahir who is out of contract and Richard Johnson.

Stephen Moore and Gareth Batty are among the Worcester exodus (Steven Davies has already gone to Surrey), both have been linked with the Bears though Batty may go to Surrey instead. Of course a lot depends on the Bears staying up in division 1.

AD is going

Allan Donald is to leave his role as bowling coach of Warwickshire after much speculation. Citing family reasons who have not managed to settle down in Birmingham he will leave after the Bears last game next month. It is sad to see a legend go but how good a coach actually was he? Sometimes i think it is easy to be blinded by the legend but then you have to coldly look at results. On the other hand of course a big name can bring big expectations. The Warwickshire bowling attack doesn't exactly leave opponents lying in ruins, though the flat pitches at Edgbaston do not help. Some bowlers like Rankin look like they have moved on though.

Hot to Trott!

No doubt a newspaper tomorrow will have that headline! Trotty showed the rest of the world what Warwickshire fans know, he is a class player and his debut century for England in his debut test was excellent. He didn't look like he was on debut though, he had the assurance of a player on his 50th test. A long career beckons hopefully.

Strictly Come Opening Batsman

Warwickshire seem to have developed a new reality show called Strictly Come Opening Batsman where everyone seems to be given a go opening the batting for the Bears in County Championship matches. Westwood and Frost of course, Trott had a go i believe. Then Carter in the last game and now in the current game against Nottinghamshire Ant Botha is given his turn. He made 19 opening with the captain which doesn't sound that good but their opening partnership of 35 out of 214-9 at stumps was probably one of the better opening stands for some games!

Don't panic!

Usually if i have to go down to my sis-in-law's Sky-less house in London during a test match i curse but in this occasion it was a blessing! But England should not panic, the series is 1-1 still. Australia are probably cursing the fact they have a gap before the final test as if there was another test now starting in days they would likely destroy England once and for all. But there is time to reflect. There is no need to panic. There is no need to contemplate recalling Mark Ramprakash. Good grief, what do they pay these journos for?

Trott for England!

With Freddie looking fragile and a possible risk too far for the next Ashes test starting today could it be time for Jon Trott to step in at #6, thus moving Prior-y down to 7 and allowing Harm-y to be bought in to replace Broad-y? If it happens when was the last time there were 2 Warwickshire batsmen playing for England? I have no idea!

Brad Hogg Flipper

Ex-Bear overseas pro (and the best we've had recently in my view, though Chris Martin was also a legend) bowls the then-Zimbabwean batsman and now England coach!