Stacking up

The reasons why it could go wrong have been well aired, but I'm happy to see KP as captain. In fact I have a suspicion that if he's allowed to grow into the role he may do very well. The biggest imponderable of all is the question of whether it'll have a negative effect on his batting, and England, who already rely on him to an unsettling degree, can't afford that.

I was also pleased to see Samit Patel's name in the one-day squad. He's a player who's impressed throughout the England age-groups and has steadily found his feet in the Notts side with some good performances in both one and four-day cricket. A glance at his profile on Cricinfo indicates that his stats stack up pretty well.

When I've seen him play he's tended to look a bit rotund but I think I read somewhere that he's worked hard on his fitness, so hopefully, if he gets to play, he won't be exposed in the field.

He does like to hit the ball hard, though, and you can always do with more of that.