In his interview afterwards he said that he would go to SA. But he said it in the same tone that I might say to my wife "Yes, your dad can come to stay". Didnt inspire confidence.

As opposed to what? 2 weeks R&R in Blackpool?

I assume playing in the Scotland game and the 2 Twenty20's. It was announced a while back he would be missing those and returning to Australia for a bit. He may even be missing for a couple of the early ODI's against England, but he'll be back here for the end of the tour.

Remember, as soon as the series is over it's off to SA for the Champions Trophy. England's first game there is only 5 days after the last Australia game.

Harmison is definatly a better than option Plunkett looked so much out of he's depth at international hes only ever going to be a steady county player

Statistically Harmison should be in there. In this year’s Championship Plunkett has a respectable number of wickets at 25 apiece, but Harmison has plenty more at 18 apiece. However it’s not always as simple as that. Statistically Ramprakash ought to be batting at 3 for England and Chris Read would be a shoo-in for the second wicketkeeper’s place and a whisker away from usurping Prior in the XI.

Harmison has been particularly erratic in recent years, especially on tour overseas. Matthew Hoggard was dropped for good after far fewer inadequate performances. Personally I think the time has come to identify suitable younger bowlers and give them a go, although there isn’t a long queue of impressive candidates.

Bresnan is the most recent discard and didn’t seem to impress many. Mahmood hasn’t pressed his case convincingly. Plunkett is having a decent season for the best team in the championship; he was too raw when first chosen and is a useful lower order bat to boot. However, as Harmison’s latest recall was initially reported as being to provide cover specifically for Flintoff, who is now out of the equasion, I’ll be surprised if the selectors don’t keep him in. The best untried option that springs to mind is Mark Davies, yet another Durham man, but he seems extremely prone to niggling injuries.

As for the batting: Cook has just had a run of poor form in the last three matches after a relatively long spell of consistency in which he rarely seemed to be out for less than 20 or 30 even if his conversion rate of 50’s to 100’s isn’t great. Bell & Bopara both bat 3 at county level but don’t look convincing there at Test level, and I can’t think of another county no.3 worth considering other than Owais Shah, who has also been sketchy in his occasional previous Tests, so going with three openers is an option worth pondering. Rob Key would be the experienced option, otherwise his Kent partner Joe Denly or Steven Moore or Michael Carberry are others apparently being monitored by the powers that be. I saw a fair bit of Carberry, who was a squad player at Surrey during their era of dominance around the start of the decade. He’s a very attractive batsman to watch but in those days never seemed to turn his promising starts into anything substantial, as he has done for Hampshire this summer, and he’s also a splendid fielder at cover or midwicket.

Having just introduced Jonathan Trott I’m not sure the selectors will want another newcomer in the top order just yet though. If they do pick a new man for the tour I expect he’ll be very much the reserve batsman unless something extraordinary occurs in the pre-Test warm up matches, of which there will no doubt be two at most. I do feel we need a third batsman in the party capable of opening if necessary, although I can’t help feeling the selectors will stick with Collingwood and include Bopara, leaving us with a potential headache if Cook or (worse still) Strauss is incapacitated on the eve of a Test match. Strauss, Cook, Bell, Pietersen and Trott are certainties, not only for the squad but probably for the First Test too. Despite Broad & Swann both doing well with the bat in the series just ended, in the wake of Flintoff’s retirement I reckon the selectors will also want the option of picking an extra batsman in the XI and going with just four bowlers plus an auxiliary medium pacer such as Collingwood or Bopara.

The squad I expect the selectors to choose is:

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Trott
Collingwood
Bopara

Prior
Foster or Davies (no real preference)

Broad
Anderson
Onions
Sidebottom
Harmison
Swann
Panesar or (preferably) Rashid

I’d like them to choose a third opener instead of Collingwood, a limited batsman who’s done his best and often produced the goods when the chips are down, but must be close to the end of his Test career now; and a younger fast bowler instead of Harmison, Plunkett probably being the best option – I haven’t seen enough of him to judge whether he’s improved sufficiently in the last couple of years. I’d also be minded to take Shah instead of Bopara, but let’s face it there will be minimal changes after we’ve just won the Ashes.

The problem for Plunkett was Duncan Fletcher resigning. Fletcher was just starting to get results from Plunkett, his displays in the One-Day finals series in Australia in 2007 were pretty outstanding, he had no less a batsman than Adam Gilchrist in his pocket, but then Duncan buggered off, and Moores didn't fancy him.

Ditto (to a lesser extent) Saj Mahmood.

Heads up that on Friday BBC 2 Scotland (Sky Channel 990) will be showing a 1 Day Clash between Scotland and the Ashes losing Aussies all day on Friday from 10:30am.

This will also be shown on Freeview (Either channel 301 or 302) or the BBC's relevant red button services on Sky and Cable.

Cheers for that pal. Friday sorted

TBH Mahmood is a Lancs lad and i dont rate him 1 little bit as a international player hes too wild and bowlsat least 2 boundary balls a over

ponting said he will be around as captain in 4 years time for revenge