New World Cricket Watch columnist Bruce Horne examines what England should do next with their bowling attack.

With the Ashes series drawing to a close, and with England having jumped a long standing psychological hurdle, this writer contemplates whether they should field  a four or five man bowling attack in the future.  In the absence of a world class all rounder (although I am sure there are hopes that Rashid and Woakes will make it) England are forced to field either an additional bowler or batsman, which significantly impacts the balance of the side.  Would a five man attack give the team that extra something to make them the strongest in the world or would it make them vulnerable?

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As a precursor to a series in the new year looking at the history of each County Championship team, Ben Roberts, who also writes at Balanced Sports, introduces us to the romanticism of the English Game and looks at the most famous cricket club of all.

During winter months gone by, after having read every newspaper article on the football season, occasionally I would chance upon a snippet of cricket just prior to the classifieds. In these snippets often I’d find tales of record-breaking performances by players in the English County Championship. I still recall reading of Brian Lara’s (still) world record first-class score of 501 not out made in under a day and a half of cricket, while playing for Warwickshire, and being amazed that such a feat was possible.

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Such is the life of an international cricketer nowadays that not all of the England touring party to Bangladesh will return home together to cooler climes. Two of their number, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, instead head off to Bangalore and Delhi respectively for lucrative assignments in the IPL. They will join Ravi Bopara, Owais Shah, Michael Lumb and Eoin Morgan from the 30 man provisional England squad who are already in India; Dimitri Mascarenhas having left the tournament early with injury.

And it is the shortest form of the game that is the next assignment for England with the World T20 in the Caribbean starting on April 30th, where they find themselves in Group D with the hosts and Ireland. So whilst most of the players will be recuperating and getting ready for the English domestic season, the selectors will be gathering in the coming days to pick the XV for the tournament. It is unlikely that the selectors will look outside the provisional squad named on March 1, which means that potentially useful players like Ian Blackwell and Samit Patel will miss out along with Alastair Cook who failed to make the cut despite being captain for the Bangladesh trip.

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A 2-0 series victory and winning margins of 181 runs and nine wickets suggest that England comfortably won the series, and to some respect they did. Nevertheless, at times Bangladesh had England on the ropes but either because of umpiring error or mainly because Bangladesh were unable to land a telling punch at crucial moments, England’s counter-attack was enough for them to prevail.

But how did each of the men that played in the two tests perform? For what it’s worth, here are my ratings:

Alastair Cook – 9 for batting, 5 for captaincy: Centuries in both matches suggested that the captaincy didn’t affect Cook’s batting, but he certainly didn’t have the air of a Jardine, an Illingworth or a Vaughan in the field. There was too much of captaincy by committee and at times Cook looked a bit confused. If the opposition had been stronger, Cook may have been more exposed. That said, England won both matches and Cook’s batting looks back to its best.

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