Performance matters in quest to be primed for Ashes

So Simon Jones may not be fit for the start of the County Championship season after all.

After failing to bowl on Worcestershire's tour of South Africa, it was no surprise that his name was not included in England's 25-man Performance Squad for the summer.

Still, it is a blow for the selectors whose hunt for an alternative pace option to Steve Harmison goes on. Aside from Jones, Sajid Mahmood is just about the only other English-qualified bowler on the county circuit with any genuine pace.


That's why they have to look at him again. No-one covered themselves with any glory for the Lions over the winter but reports suggest that Mahmood was the best of that crop.

If he can just get his wrist action sorted out he could be a threat this summer because he has a very whippy, potentially very good bowling action.

Condition

After churning out 30 names for the World Twenty20 tournament simply to satisfy the rules of the competition, I was pleased to see the selectors leave five vacant places in their EPS party. After all, there is no point in giving people false hope.

England have played Lee pretty well over the years and managed to score runs off him fairly comfortably, preferring pace on the ball rather than playing swing.

Samit Patel has been given another chance to try and prove he can cut it at international level; he's a bright, young bloke so I was staggered when he was dropped from the one-day squad earlier this year for fitness-related issues.

I hope he's not got 'Ian Blackwell' syndrome and will listen to those around him rather than continue to turn up out of condition otherwise we could see the same type of rift between him and the selectors that developed between Blackwell and Langer at Somerset.

I've picked Nottinghamshire to win the County Championship because I'm not sure England are going to pick Patel; he's certainly a very handy all-round cricketer - perhaps not in the Test arena - but he's got a tremendous future in the first-class and one-day arena.It's also good to welcome James Foster back in the fold; I've said for a while now that Matt Prior should burn his wicketkeeper gauntlets and challenge for a batting place but England seem determined to have someone who can bat who also puts gloves on.

I don't really think there is a challenge to Prior at the moment but Foster is a very capable cricketer and a much better one than when he made his Test debut for England in 2001; he is a much more mature character now.

I think he is next in line in the longer form of the game but clearly the selectors are looking at Steven Davies in the shorter form so it's good there is competition.

Spearhead

Australian fans should be pleased to see Andrew Symonds and Brett Lee restored to the one-day squad for the upcoming series against Pakistan although I happen to think that neither of them should pose England an insurmountable threat should they make the Ashes this summer.England have played Lee pretty well over the years and managed to score runs off him fairly comfortably, preferring pace on the ball rather than playing swing.

I believe Mitchell Johnson and a fit Stuart Clark will be pose England more of a problem but Lee is Australia's spearhead and they will be banking on him to regain pace and fitness to bolster an attack that at times during the winter has looked pretty threadbare.

Swing

Meanwhile, Australia's current series against South Africa is fascinatingly poised at one game apiece. Ricky Ponting's side couldn't have experienced a much greater swing in form after cruising to victory at Kingsmead only to take a walloping at Centurion.

With the World Twenty20 around the corner, both sides are tinkering with their teams and taking the opportunity to look at a few players and some of them are responding well.

South Africa's Wayne Parnell and Callum Ferguson for the Aussies are both new names to look at and their success so far shows that neither side is a closed shop, particularly when it comes to one-day cricket.

Both teams are going to grit their teeth now because the No 1 slot in the one-day rankings is at stake which means we can not only expect both to go all out for a win in Cape Town but less experimentation as the series progresses.