Cook’s back problem gave them the opportunity to play Eoin Morgan in the middle order with Jonathan Trott moving up to partner Andrew Strauss and if Morgan scores well in the next three one-dayers England will have to seriously consider him for the first Test.

He’s ambitious and said after the T20s that he would like to get into the Test team and if he gets a couple of good scores they’re going to have trouble leaving him out even if Cook recovers.

Trott doesn’t seem to have a problem going in first or batting at number three unlike, for example, Rahul Dravid, who is magnificent at first wicket down but who just couldn’t cut it as an opener.

I’ve been saying for many months that much as I like Cook, his concentration, application and approach to the game are admirable but he has a problem with the straight ball. He puts his right foot, the front one, to the off side of the ball when it should be to the leg side. Because of that he plays around his front pad and if he misses it he’s leg before or bowled. I don’t know why he hasn’t solved it by now; either the coaches aren’t telling him or he’s not listening. Maybe he just can’t do it because I can’t believe that Andy Flower, England’s head coach and a very fine left hander himself, hasn’t told him about it. One of the benefits of this situation could be that there will be competition for places which is very healthy for English cricket.

The other problem for England is Adil Rashid. England took him to the West Indies last winter to gain experience without picking him for a Test and brought him here as the second spinner. He had Mushtaq Ahmed, the great Pakistan leg spinner, with him the whole time in the Caribbean and he’s with him in now South Africa. The big problem with Adil is that he’s too expensive. He’s got all the tricks and variations but he doesn’t have the most important thing of all, a stock ball. England are trying to fast track him but he just gets walloped. One over in the T20 cost 25 runs, three in the one-dayer at Centurion 27 runs. The captain just can’t set a field for him. The idea of getting a leg spinner who can bat and is good in the field is laudable but it’s no good if he can’t bowl his quota. Our coaches at Yorkshire have been telling England that he’s not ready for one day international cricket and that he needs to learn his trade. He’s been told time and time again that he needs to develop that stock ball and so far he just can’t do it. Shane Warne was not only a great spinner of the ball but he didn’t get hit a lot and kept the batsman under pressure. When Adil bowls there is no pressure at all. It is Yorkshire’s duty as a county club to develop cricketers for England but Adil is simply not ready.

It was a good performance by England at Centurion despite the fact South Africa made mistakes with their batting. A score of 250 was competitive but not good enough to put England under pressure.

Outside of Dale Steyn none of their bowlers would keep you awake at night. Paul Collingwood showed his experience and maturity and he’s a wonderful example for youngsters proving that you don’t have to be the most talented player in the team to succeed. You need some ability, obviously, but character is much more important. He makes the best of what he’s got, he’s not aesthetically pleasing, all bottom hand and shovels it into the leg side, but he’s effective if not beautiful and England would not do so well without him.

It was a thoroughly professional performance by the whole team with the exception of the captain dropping a couple of sitters against a South African side who look ordinary without Jacques Kallis. They just haven’t got anyone else like him and if he’s not fit for the Tests it will even things up a lot. England want to win one or two more of the one-dayers and then bring on the Test series.

For a while it didn’t look as though we were going to get too many but Paul Collingwood picked it up and with Eoin Morgan we got some fireworks we didn’t really expect. Colly made the best of his limited range of shots by using the bottom hand to thump it over and through the leg side but Morgan was a revelation. A little left hander, he puts me in mind of Neil Fairbrother, the former Lancashire and England batsman, in the way he goes about his work. Short and stocky he seems to have the gift for improvisation, not only because of his hand-eye co-ordination but because he has the mind set to try different things. Sometimes delicate, sometimes powerful, sometimes inventive as he showed at the end by stepping outside his off stump and lifting the ball over fine leg for six! When they bowled him a bouncer he hit it miles out of the park and his innings was as good as anything I’ve seen for a while.

In the end England had a pretty decent total but our bowling was woeful. Graeme Smith and Loots Bosman took a couple of overs to have a look and then whacked it all over the park. They were coasting when the rain came, as it does late in the afternoon or early evening in Johannesberg, 5,000 feet above sea level on what is known as the high veldt and when it started to get heavy there was a discussion out in the middle with everyone studying the Duckworth-Lewis tables.

If they’d have gone off then, South Africa would have won but, no, they stayed on for one more over. In the commentary box we knew it was seven to tie and eight to win because we had the same Duckworth-Lewis tables. But South Africa got six runs and seemed to think that was enough. How the hell they could get it wrong and fall one short is unbelievable. For all the talent that’s in their side there’s obviously a problem when it comes to reading and adding up; and it’s not the first time. To happen in the World Cup at Durban was bad enough but to get it wrong twice is madness and you can only say there’s more brains in a pork pie.

Smith and Bosman had crucified the England bowlers and it was just another screw up. One good over and England won because people didn’t know the regulations. It must have hurt them because when Smith won the toss at Centurion he batted first so that arithmetic wouldn’t come into it!

I’ve never seen batting like it even if the bowling was rubbish. Sajid Mahmood went for three sixes and seven fours and Adil Rashid was hit for four sixes in his one over. The only guys who came out with any credit were Jimmy Anderson and Luke Wright, a batsman who bowls a bit, and at least tried to get it straight and pitch it up. Unless England do something about the bowling it doesn’t matter what the batsmen do.

Tim Bresnan is too wide on the crease at delivery and he must get closer to the stumps and bowl wicket to wicket. I know the coaches at Yorkshire and England have told him about this, so either he won’t do it or he can’t but if he doesn’t he’s going to have a very short international career. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, I’ll say again about Rashid that he is too expensive for one-day cricket. He’s got all the variations but doesn’t have a stock ball he can drop on a sixpence, something Shane Warne and Richie Benaud insist is essential.

Our bowling needs looking at but you’ve got to give credit to Smith and Bosman. Smith stands there like a baseball player looking to smash home runs and six sixes and eight fours are testimony to his sheer power. Bosnan is a T20 specialist with a lovely free swing of the bat and gorgeous timing from a very powerful lad who had nine sixes and five fours in his 94. After they’d finished with us nothing else mattered, the game was over and we were totally out of it.

Our only hope, and it was a pretty slim one, was to say we need 100 off the first ten overs and 140 off the last, so what did we do? Send in Denly, Cook and Jonathan Trott who between them couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding in T20 and we’d lost all hope before we’d started. All three are lovely orthodox batsmen but there’s no way they’re going to score at ten an over and what on earth is Cook doing even playing T20 let alone being captain. Whoever thought that up wants his head testing. Morgan, Wright, Bresnan, Kevin Pieterson, all shot makers, should have gone in earlier to have the slightest chance of winning, a small one at that. A squad of senior players and 15 backroom staff couldn’t work that out? Give me a break. They simply didn’t think outside the box which is the whole point of T20. It’s so fast and furious you haven’t time for lengthy discussion, you have to think on your feet and that’s my one condemnation of England. There’s too many backroom staff doing the thinking for the players and when they have to work it out for themselves they just can’t do it.

As far as the rest of the tour is concerned, I disagree with Smith and Collingwood, I don’t think it matters who won the T20s but it was important for England to play well. In the final analysis the bowling was crap and, with the exception of Collingwood and Morgan, the batting poor.

England’s most obvious problem will be their lack of firepower. There will never be another Andrew Flintoff, and Steve Harmison also leaves a big hole in the attack. The rest of the bowlers are steady and can produce decent results in England when there is some movement in the air or spin in the pitch. But on flat South African decks, I don’t see them keeping anyone awake at night.

James Anderson now finds himself promoted to the status of senior bowler, which means he has to be more consistent. On his good days he is a world-beater, but the bad days come along too often for my liking. Stuart Broad, too, needs to step up. He produced a brilliant, Ashes-winning spell at the Oval, but at Edgbaston the ball was floating out of his hand like a powder puff. Broad has said he wants more responsibility now that Flintoff has retired from Test cricket.

This is his chance to grab it.

The other man I am concerned about is Ryan Sidebottom. I just don’t think England are using him in the right way. They are encouraging him to bowl as fast as he can, to push his speed up into the high 80s. But by striving for extra pace, Sidebottom has lost the control that made him such a success in his first full year with England. He has become too expensive and sends down a stack of four-balls.

Sidebottom’s strength is his swing, and that is only effective if you have pinpoint control of line and length. I saw Sachin Tendulkar interviewed the other day about the most challenging duels he has experienced in Test cricket, and he mentioned the spell that Sidebottom bowled to him at Trent Bridge two years ago. It didn’t actually get Tendulkar out – but that’s not the point, because it would have done for anybody else.

That sort of spell is what Sidebottom needs to get back to: proper swing bowling, when the ball almost seems to be under remote control.

He is never going to be a genuine nasty fastie, and searching for a few extra mph won’t give the likes of Jacques Kallis anything to worry about.

Another concern for England is the absence of Port Elizabeth from the Test schedule. That’s the only ground that you can count on to turn a bit; the rest are likely to reduce Graeme Swann to the role of a stock bowler, shutting down one end while Strauss rotates the seamers at the other. I am not sure Adil Rashid will get a game, because England’s strategy will probably revolve around containment, and he tends to be expensive.

Rashid’s weakness is that he has all the eye-catching tricks but he doesn’t have a stock ball he can rely on. When the young Shane Warne went to Richie Benaud for advice, Benaud told him to go away and perfect a stock ball he could bowl at will. Benaud thought it might take two years, but Warne’s talent was such that he did it in six months. It’s the same for professional golfers: when they are in trouble, or under pressure, they need to have a particular shot they can hit with their eyes closed. Until Rashid sorts that part of his game out, he will always be a risky selection at international level.

As for England’s batting, that has been shaky for a while. The best player in the side, Kevin Pietersen, is recovering from an Achilles injury, and no-one can be entirely confident about his form or fitness. Then there are the openers. There is no back-up in this position, so if either Strauss or Alastair Cook gets injured, the selectors will be struggling to find a replacement. I hear that Cook has done some rebuilding work on his technique, and I hope he has tried to stop playing around his front pad.

This whole tour is going to be a searching examination for England against a well-conditioned and well-balanced side. Strauss has already shown himself to be a strong leader, but if he comes back from South Africa as a winner, that will outstrip anything he has achieved as a captain to date.

Article courtesy of the Telegraph.co.uk

If the Australians had bowled out James Anderson or Monty Panesar at Cardiff, they would have won the match and then it would have been a drawn series. Likewise, if Shane Warne had caught Kevin Pietersen in the final Test at the Oval in 2005, the Aussies would have kept the urn.

It’s probably true that England had the rub of the green, but no one in this country will be crying about the Australians’ misfortune. They have come out on top too many times. Now, though, it is time to focus on the next big commitment for Andrew Strauss and company: the tour of South Africa that starts in November. Even after the euphoria of the last couple of days, there are still plenty of problems to address.

England’s biggest worry will be their top order. Strauss has given an object lesson all summer in the mechanics of batting: he has shown excellent balance, footwork and judgement of what to play and what to leave around off stump. At the other end, though, Alastair Cook has been all over the place. His technique has gone backwards, and it is imperative that he gets into the nets and works on his footwork over the next couple of months. He is fortunate that there are no other opening batsmen queuing up for his place.

Ian Bell is also looking out of his depth at No 3. The short ball is troubling him too much: he got out to it twice in the last two Tests, and took a number of blows on the gloves and the arm. The worst thing is that he isn’t even looking at the ball half the time. In South Africa, the pitches bounce, and the opening bowlers have plenty of pace. They will have noticed his struggles around his chest area, and if he comes in early against the hard new ball he is going to get peppered.

The return of Kevin Pietersen will give the middle-order a more imposing look, but the people around him are not convincing. Bell isn’t the only man struggling against the short ball. Speaking on the radio, Phil Tufnell compared Paul Collingwood’s dismissal on Friday night to himself batting at No 11. Collingwood may be alright in the comfort zone at No 5, where England have plenty of options now that Jonathan Trott has emerged as a potential star of the future. But you always need solid people at the top of the order. Ravi Bopara is a talented young player, but he has been found wanting up front as well.

I have said before that one good way of shoring up your batting is to play three openers up front. The new ball is crucial in Test cricket, so if you can blunt it, you are usually on the way to a decent score. There are a couple of other options out there in Robert Key, who is a mature player, and Hampshire’s Michael Carberry. I haven’t seen Carberry myself but I have heard that the selectors are taking him seriously.

Down at Nos six to nine, England will be looking to stack up a pile of all-rounders to make up for the loss of Andrew Flintoff. They don’t have an Ian Botham-type player – those only come along once or twice in a generation. So the alternative is to spread the load around. We have already seen Matt Prior, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann show that they can score reliable runs, and I expect Adil Rashid to be added to the mix. He has jumped the queue ahead of Panesar after two successive county championship matches where he has scored an unbeaten hundred and taken five wickets in an innings with his leg-breaks. On top of that, he is a brilliant fielder in any position. With the case Rashid is making, I don’t think the selectors will be able to keep him out for much longer.

These are the areas that need to be addressed. It will be interesting to see how far they are prepared to stick their necks out when the touring squad is announced, in around a month’s time. There is certainly no room for complacency; England can’t start believing they are the best team in the world, as they did four years ago. But if they beat South Africa in South Africa, they might just be able to say that.