Ed Osmond

England will be under huge pressure to make changes for the deciding Ashes test at the Oval and the middle order is the obvious place to start, with Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood contributing just 16 runs in six innings at Headingley.

So what should England do about it?

Possible replacements include Jonathan Trott, who was called into the squad at Headingley, Robert Key of Kent and even 39-year-old Mark Ramprakash as a one-off experiment.

Captain Andrew Strauss said he would be reluctant to make wholesale changes but Bopara, in particular, looks short of confidence in the crucial number three spot and it might be worth a gamble on Trott or Key in such a crucial game.

And Ramprakash? Is that just an idea for the romantics?

As for Australia, their selectors should be patting themselves on the back.

They recalled seamer Stuart Clark in place of spinner Nathan Hauritz in a horses-for-courses selection which was a stunning success.

The experienced Clark galvanized the rest of the attack with his opening spell on the first day, his accurate probing outswingers claiming three England wickets and tying down one end.

That inspired Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson, who had struggled previously in the series, and each claimed a five-wicket haul in the match. They will head into the deciding test high on confidence and with Brett Lee also likely to be available for selection Australia's seam bowling resources look healthy indeed.

FILE PHOTO: England's Mark Ramprakash watches his ball to safety on his way to a century during a game against a Board President's X1 in Hyderabad, November 22, 2001. At the close of play England were 297 for 9 and Ramprakash was out for 105. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Andrew Strauss had a bad start to his day when he and his team mates were evacuated from their hotel at 5 o'clock in the morning because of a fire alarm. Unfortunately, that was just the start of a black Friday for the England captain.After days of assessing the fitness of Andrew Flintoff, Strauss and coach Andy Flower finally decided that the inspirational all-rounder could not be risked in a five-day match and it was announced that he was ruled out of the fourth Ashes test.

Strauss took part in a game of soccer on the Headingley outfield and watched in horror as wicketkeeper Matt Prior collapsed with a back spasm before retiring gingerly to the dressing-room for treatment.

Fortunately, Prior made a rapid recovery and Strauss's day then appeared to take a turn for the better when he won the toss and chose to bat. He strode out confidently with his opening partner Alastair Cook looking to build a huge first-innings total and take charge of the match.

But having survived a huge appeal for lbw off Ben Hilfenhaus's first delivery of the game, Strauss looked out of sorts and he lasted just 17 balls and three runs before edging Peter Siddle to Marcus North at third slip.

A rare failure in the series and Strauss returned to the dressing-room hoping to watch his team mates take responsibility but he watched in disbelief as the Australian seamers took advantage of favourable conditions to leave England in tatters at 72-6 at lunch. Suddenly it looked a very good toss to lose as Ricky Ponting would almost certainly have batted first had he won it.

Strauss watched the start of the afternoon session from the balcony outside the dressing-room and things did not improve as Graeme Swann, Steve Harmison, James Anderson and Graham Onions joined the procession. Around nine and a half hours after emerging bleary-eyed into the Leeds dawn, Strauss's nightmare was complete.

PHOTO: England's Andrew Strauss leaves the field after being caught for 3 during the first day of the fourth Ashes cricket test match against Australia at Headingley, August 7, 2009. REUTERS/Philip Brown

Australia have far more limited options than England when they consider changes to their
battle-weary side for the fourth Ashes test starting on Friday at Headingley, with their main hope of fresh impetus resting on the fitness of Brett Lee.

England had the luxury of bringing in fresh blood on Tuesday, calling up fast bowler Ryan Sidebottom and uncapped batsman Jonathan Trott for the first time this series, while again putting Steve Harmison on standby in a 14-man squad.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting expects to be able to call on Lee for the first time this series, after the quick bowler missed the first three tests with a rib injury.

Seamer Stuart Clark could be another option, possibly at the expense of Peter Siddle but otherwise the skipper has little to juggle with ahead of a match they cannot afford to lose, with England already 1-0 up with two to play.

"We will keep a close eye on Brett and I would expect him to be able to bowl," Ponting said after the third test draw in Edgbaston. "We know what Stuart is capable of and we will have plenty to talk about."

Australia are again likely to be without first-choice wicket-keeper Brad Haddin again after he pulled out of the Edgbaston test with a finger injury but Ponting remained bullish.

"If we play our best cricket we will take some beating," he said.

PHOTO: Brett Lee reacts to the crowd as he delivers drinks during the fourth day of the third Ashes test against England at Edgbaston in Birmingham, August 2, 2009. REUTERS/Darren Staples

Most Manchester United fans will not have been excited when they heard of the club’s plans to sign Michael Owen. The experienced England striker certainly did not fit the usual profile of Alex Ferguson’s signings, at too old and far too injury-prone.

But could Owen prove to be another one of Ferguson’s transfer masterstrokes to rank alongside the likes of Eric Cantona and Henrik Larsson?

The departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez have left United very short of attacking options, leaving Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov as the only experienced forwards at Old Trafford.

Danny Wellbeck and Federico Macheda are promising players but surely not ready to play regularly at the highest level. So why not bring in Owen to help their development, a player with 40 international goals and despite his recent injury problems, a good scoring record throughout his career even in a poor Newcastle side over the last four years?

Ferguson surely has nothing to lose. Owen cost nothing, is on a salary dependent on the number of games he plays and the number of goals he scores. He is desperate to play at next year’s World Cup and, after a few years in the wilderness, has everything to prove at the age of 29. He could barely disguise the grin on his face during interviews on Saturday.

Owen to Manchester United could be a disaster on both sides. But, equally, it could be a match made in heaven.

PHOTO: Michael Owen (L) leaves the Bridgewater hospital in Manchester after undergoing a medical before signing for United, July 3, 2009. REUTERS

England may argue that they were unlucky to exit the World Twenty20 following a five-wicket defeat by West Indies but the simple truth is that they batted poorly throughout the tournament.

With the honourable exceptions of Ravi Bopara and Kevin Pietersen, the batsmen completely failed to get to grips with the art of scoring runs in this form of the game.

Call it lack of urgency, lack of innovation or lack of skill but the main problems were a shortage of power and the confidence to take calculated risks.

Dmitri Mascarenhas's bizarre innings against India summed up England's problem. The burly all-rounder has proved that he is capable of hitting sixes at international level. After a steady start to the innings against India he was promoted up the order to number four, specifically to take on the Indian slow bowlers and boost the run rate with a few lusty blows. Or so we thought.

Instead, Mascarenhas paddled the ball aimlessly around for ones and twos, facing 27 balls for his 25 runs. Far from actually clearing the ropes, he did not even once attempt a big hit. Momentum lost, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood and James Foster, all far more suited to the type of supporting innings Mascarenhas was playing, perished trying to find the boundaries England so desperately needed.

Against India, England's bowlers performed heroically to pull off an unlikely victory but 24 hours later the tournament hosts found themselves in a similar position against West Indies. A solid platform laid by Bopara and Pietersen simply cried out for sensible attacking batting to lift England to a formidable total. But England went some 50 balls without hitting a single boundary until Stuart Broad hit the last two deliveries of the innings for six and four. Again, England finished at least 20 runs short of a challenging total and West Indies took full advantage.

Watching from the sidelines were Graham Napier and Eoin Morgan, strangely not given a chance to try to convert their prolific county form to the international arena. Napier is a specialist six-hitter while Morgan is a master of the unorthodox shots which upset bowlers and garner vital runs in Twenty20 cricket.

Given England's lack of firepower, their continued omission from the team was as baffling as the team's approach to batting.

PHOTO: England's Paul Collingwood leaves the field after his dismissal in the defeat by West Indies at the Oval, June 15, 2009. REUTERS/Philip Brown

In an earlier post, Julian Linden argued that Australia's cricketers have all the firepower needed to retain the Ashes in England despite some relatively new faces in the squad.

Here Ed Osmond takes a different view, wondering if the absence of Andrew Symonds and Australia's lack of spin options may help the English.

England should be highly delighted by Australia’s decision to omit all-rounder Andrew Symonds from their Ashes squad.

The big Queenslander may have had disciplinary issues over the past year, but his cricketing ability should not be under-estimated.

Always a talented stroke player, Symonds has added steel and composure to his batting, which he showed in making vital test centuries against England in Melbourne in 2006 and India in Sydney in 2008.

His gentle medium-pacers or off-spinners do not usually cause too many problems for batsmen but Symonds has a presence which makes him an ideal potential partnership breaker and he is one of the best outfielders in world cricket.

Australia have high hopes of exciting young batsman Phil Hughes who has been in a rich vein form for English county Middlesex and his opening partnership with the experienced Simon Katich will be vital.

Katich struggled badly on the 2005 Ashes tour but through sheer weight of runs earned a recall to the test side and has performed consistently in recent series.

Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey and Michael Clarke should score the bulk of the team’s runs in a quality middle-order but if any of them fail to find their form there are no other specialist batsmen in the squad and the selectors may rue the omission of the experienced Brad Hodge.

The seam bowling department has been boosted by the returns of fit-again Brett Lee and Stuart Clark to join Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus. Lee, however, was struggling for form before his recent injury problems and will be under pressure to reclaim his status as Australia’s leading fast bowler.

Spin is also a potential problem for the Australians with the largely defensive Nathan Hauritz the only specialist slow bowler in the party.

The Australians have tried a number of spinners since the retirement of Shane Warne and Hauritz will need to take wickets for them as well as play the containing role for which he is ideally suited.

PHOTO: Australia's Andrew Symonds dives for a ball during the final day of their second test in St. John's, Antigua June 3, 2008. REUTERS/Andy Clark

When England nightwatchman James Anderson smashed West Indies seamer Lionel Baker for four late on the first day of the second test he extended one of the more surprising records in test cricket.

The fast bowler has now played 48 test innings without being dismissed for a duck, three more than his nearest rival Yasir Hameed of Pakistan.

However, before anyone gets too excited about the fact that a genuine tail-ender with a test average of 13.77 holds this record, it needs a bit of explanation.

A glance down the list Anderson heads does not reveal many illustrious names and merely proves that good players do regularly get out without troubling the scorers.

Other statistics are a bit more revealing.

South African AB De Villiers went 78 test innings before registering his first duck, three more than the great Sri Lankan Aravinda De Silva.

Former England captain David Gower heads the list of most consecutive innings without making nought on 119, ahead of two other fine batsmen of his generation, Richie Richardson of West Indies and Australian Allan Border.

At the other end of the batting spectrum, the four players with the most ducks in test cricket have taken more than 2,500 test wickets between them.

West Indies pace man Courtney Walsh tops the list with 43 blobs, closely followed by Australians Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and test cricket's highest wicket-taker Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka.

PHOTO: England's James Anderson takes part in a training session at Kensington Oval before the fourth test cricket match against the West Indies at Bridgetown February 24, 2009. REUTERS/Philip Brown

The first day of the second test between England and West Indies unfolded meekly in front of a sparse crowd in Chester Le Street on Thursday.

England made smooth but cautious progress towards what they hope will be a match and series-winning first-innings score.

But they did it in near silence as the few spectators as the few people present at the picturesque ground watched the proceedings with an air of resigned inevitability.

Many of them shivered in the chilly conditions and the West Indies fielders ambled around with their whites fluttering in the stiff north-east breeze.

The build-up to the match was dominated by the claims of West Indies captain Chris Gayle that he didn't really want the job and that he wouldn't mind giving up playing Test cricket. That apparently indifferent attitude seems to have spread to his team who looked only marginally more motivated than they appeared during last week's drubbing in the first Test at Lord's.

With the popularity of Twenty20 cricket growing by the week, test cricket cannot afford days of turgid action like this. England captain Andrew Strauss has promised that his side will try to play the style of aggressive and positive cricket needed to provide entertainment and they will certainly need to do that when the Australians arrive for the Ashes series later this summer.

PHOTO: Two spectators sit watching the second Test between England and the West Indies at Riverside, Chester le Street, Durham on May 14 2009. REUTERS/Philip Brown

The second Twenty20 World Cup takes place in England this year and the hosts are facing the prospect of a humiliating experience.

England’s feeble six-wicket loss to the West Indies in Sunday’s one-off match was further proof that they have completely failed to get to grips with the newest form of the game.

A swashbuckling 100-run victory over Australia in their first ever Twenty20 clash in 2005 proved the falsest of dawns for England who have won only five of 14 matches since and tried an extraordinary 42 different players in a bid to find the right team.

While other countries have used a core of proven test players as the nucleus of their Twenty20 sides, England have blooded a succession of journeymen county players in the vain hope that they would be up to the job.

Michael Yardy, Jonathan Trott, Jeremy Snape, Tim Bresnan and Paul Nixon never had the basic skills to strike fear into the world’s top teams and they have duly returned to the county ranks after palpably failing to cut the mustard on the international stage.

Dimitri Mascharenhas has enjoyed limited success but the burly 31-year-old all-rounder is essentially a slogger, capable of hitting the odd boundary but lacking the technique to survive for long against the world’s top bowlers.

England do have world-class players in Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff while Ravi Bopara and Stuart Broad are young players with genuine potential. But the selectors must show far more consistency and demand a complete rethink of the team’s tactical approach if England are to have any hope of being competitive in the 2009 World Cup.

Ryan Giggs has probably never received the recognition he deserves for his contribution to Manchester United’s success over the last 15 years.

No other player has collected the full set of medals for all the silverware which has filled the Old Trafford trophy cabinet over that time. Yet several, including Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Cristiano Ronaldo, have received the major individual awards which have eluded the man who has played more games for United than anyone else.

Giggs started in the first team as a 17-year-old winger famously likened by his manager Alex Ferguson to a “spaniel chasing a slip of paper in the wind”. Ferguson recently described Giggs as the ultimate professional whose burning desire to continue playing at the highest level at the age of 35 should make him a role model for all aspiring footballers.

Giggs has unsurprisingly lost the raw pace which, combined with his skills, used to leave defenders with what his manager called “twisted blood”. But he more than compensates now with a vast experience which allows him to play in a variety of positions.

Ferguson played Giggs as a holding central midfielder in the recent Premier League win over Chelsea and he was used as a striker in Sunday’s FA Cup victory over Derby County. Typically, the Welshman gave a masterclass of passing and clever touches which created three goals and prompted more calls for him to be named England’s Footballer of the Year.

From exuberant spaniel to top dog. That would be a fitting reward for one of British football’s most popular and enduring players.

PHOTO: Manchester United's Ryan Giggs stretches during a training session at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow May 20, 2008. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh