Unless the scale of the defeat in Johannesburg has caused a last-minute change of heart, Alastair Cook will be named this morning as England captain for both forms of the game throughout the forthcoming tour to Bangladesh.
The move, if confirmed, is not without controversy, since Andrew Strauss has been in the job for a little more than a year and Cook has shown nothing that indicates he is the right man to take over in charge.
Cook is a fine young player, and the vice-captain, but the added burden of leadership may not sit well with someone who, only three matches ago, was playing for a place in the team and his Test match future. He has worked feverishly with Graham Gooch to recapture his best form, and he should be left to concentrate on becoming a more dominant player than he is now.
Besides, nothing that Cook has said, in ghosted newspaper articles, ghosted books or in press conferences, has suggested a leader-in-waiting. The selectors believe that Cook has a more imposing presence in the dressing room than would appear from the outside and that his contributions there are valued. But the suspicion remains that he has been promoted on the basis of very little evidence.
Besides, it is not immediately clear why Strauss should be granted a sabbatical after a year in the job. It is not as though he has had an outstanding tour to South Africa as a batsman — he played only one innings of note, in Durban — and it is hard to understand how “tiredness” can be trotted out as a reason for his absence. Strauss does not play Twenty20 cricket and plays very little for Middlesex.
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Of course the England captaincy is a demanding job, but that is very much part of the deal. Throughout this tour, Strauss has said constantly how far from the finished article his team are, so surely this would be a good chance to help further their development. Besides, the 2011 World Cup is being partly staged in Bangladesh and Strauss, one assumes, would rather like the chance to lead his team in it.
One of the fundamentals of leadership is not asking players to do something you are not prepared to do yourself, so Strauss should think very carefully before he passes on what is both an honour and the job that he is paid to do.
If Strauss does not go, England will have to find a new opening partner for Cook. There are two options: a middle-order player, either Jonathan Trott or Ian Bell, could be promoted, or Michael Carberry, present throughout the latter stages of the tour to South Africa, will get his first opportunity in the senior team.
The selectors will then be faced with a tricky decision, since it is clear that England could not go into a Test match on the sub-continent with only four bowlers as they did throughout the series against South Africa. If Carberry plays, one of the middle order may miss out so that Matt Prior can resume at No 6. On form, Trott and Kevin Pietersen are the most vulnerable, Trott being the likelier to make way, which would be a shame, because a tour to the sub-continent is exactly what he needs to develop his game.
A second spinner, possibly a third, is a necessity for Bangladesh, and the selectors’ choice will tell us much about Adil Rashid’s immediate prospects. Rashid is thought to be a slow learner and not yet ready despite the considerable investment of time in him. The management is known to be keen on James Tredwell, but two off spinners is not ideal. The alternatives to Tredwell are Monty Panesar, Ian Blackwell, who had a good season last year for Durham, the county champions, or, were he fit, Samit Patel.
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Whether the selectors decide to leave out any other senior players remains to be seen, although James Anderson could do with giving his wonky knee a rest. They are keen to move to a rotation policy because of the arduous nature of the international calendar, but omitting senior players, who might then play in other franchise competitions, would not sit well with England supporters.
Nor should it. One further thought: England have not been flushed with success overseas in recent years, and the news from Chittagong yesterday, where Bangladesh restricted India to 213 for eight on the opening day of the first Test, suggests that Bangladesh are a team who, on home soil especially, should not be taken lightly.
Anderson apart, England should take a full-strength team. They are not yet good enough not to.