Moores plans backwards to take England forwards

England's one-day team remain a work in progress. The script has been rewritten scores of times in the past 15 years without anybody managing to find a happy ending, and usually there has been a muddled beginning and a confused middle, occasionally with happy moments. Now there is a new approach.

"We're definitely planning backwards," said Peter Moores, the new coach, who is still in his honeymoon period. Planning backwards, he prays, from the World Cup final in Bombay in the spring of 2011. "We're trying to identify players who can play in that World Cup, and we know from past World Cups that we need experienced players. But we've got to get into a winning habit and find ways of winning, develop players in there.

"We all know that putting out teams of youngsters doesn't really work. If we feel it's right we will put in players who might not get through to the next World Cup because, one, they can help us to win in the short term; and two, they can pass on their experience to others." This is an eminently sensible strategy, though Moores and his fellow selectors must know that any planning is being drastically affected by missing players.

There are four whom they would crave to have in the squad for the three-match one-day series which starts at Lord's today (West Indies are better at this game, England should still win). Three of them are from the old guard, Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Flintoff and Stephen Harmison; one slowly recovering from stress, one recovering from an ankle injury, one apparently retired from one-day cricket.

Flintoff will return, and Moores has not closed the door on the other two, nor on Michael Vaughan. The fourth absentee is a new warrior, Ravinder Bopara, also injured, who will assuredly be in Bombay if England are.

The consolation is that this is giving an opportunity to others to secure a place, not least the two new caps Jonathan Trott and Dimitri Mascarenhas and the recalled Owais Shah. But the squad for this part of the one-day summer has been slightly compromised, since it had to be picked to tackle two Twenty20 matches and three of the more traditional 50-over variety. Different strengths are required in both.

England may feel they had no choice on this occasion, but for the Twenty20 World Cup in September they may be less willing to rule out specialists, if they exist. Twenty20 has no enemies now. It has indeed attracted a whole new audience, and purists too recognise why that matters.

An argument could be made that England's victory against West Indies on Friday evening at The Oval was their most important of the season. The victory was witnessed by a full house of 23,000, full of young faces. In watching England win they found heroes, will want to come again and may find other forms of the game to their liking.

England may make some changes for the 50-over game. Ian Bell will probably replace Trott at No 3, Monty Panesar could come in for Mike Yardy and Liam Plunkett replace Stuart Broad to bolster the batting. It still leaves the bowling looking weak, and they still need more beef at the top of the order.

Trott was picked largely for his Twenty20 skills. He was not the most popular of selections around the county circuit. If most, not all, thought he was good enough, it was a little hard to take that he was another cricketer born and brought up in South Africa who moved to England because it was a smart career move and then found himself cast as an English cricketer.

Thisproblem, if it is a problem, will soon be no longer that of the ECB chairman, David Morgan. He is leaving, and will become president of the ICC in May. Those in the early frame for the job are Sir Bill Morris, the former general secretary of the T& G Union, who sits on the ECB management board; the present deputy chairman, Mike Soper; and Giles Clarke, the chairman of Somerset. Soper, a maverick with passion for English cricket, probably deserves a bash.

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