After Surrey’s latest captain won the toss and asked Yorkshire to bat, it was always likely to be a quiet reintroduction to competitive cricket for Kevin Pietersen as the England batsman stepped on to the field for the first time in more than three months.

Chris Adams was sacked as team director by Surrey yesterday after a dire start to the season. The first-team coach, Ian Salisbury, was also relieved of his duties with immediate effect.

Prior struck an outstanding innings of 82

Success in New Zealand and their qualified failure in India have yielded a novel conundrum for England. Along the way, this winter they exchanged wicketkeepers in one-day cricket.

He could plausibly make Pakistan the best Test side in the world within two years

Five years on from debut, the England keeper has improved hugely – as a player and team man

Matt Prior came unstuck in jelly bean-gate on India's last visit. Now he's the world's best batsman-keeper

Outside Off-Stump

Wicketkeeper faces same fate as predecessors if he continues to disappoint at the crease

It is not easy leading a losing side. I know, I played in enough of them and watched the pressure get to Gower, Atherton and Hussain in different ways.

The Nottinghamshire keeper was badly treated by England – and Duncan Fletcher in particular. He talks to Mark Sellek

So, the match between England and Australia at the Rose Bowl the other night was the 3,000th one-day international. That is some landmark. Or is it? The trouble with this big(ish) piece of history is that it needed several minuscule pieces of history to be achieved. Perhaps this is always the case with history; the little sketches make up the large picture. But the calculation was made by including all those ODIs which do meet the criteria for being so exalted in anything but name. Hong Kong, for instance, have played four ODIs according to the official records, all in the Asia Cups of 2004 and 2008. And nobody has yet made more than 36 in a single innings. The ICC World XI count for four more; then there are the conglomerate sides: East Africa, who appeared in the first World Cup, an Asia XI and an Africa XI. Take these away and there would be some way to go to 3,000. Whatever the number, it came as a surprise to note that between them Australia (742) and India (746) have played in nearly half of all the ODIs ever staged. And that 15 players have appeared 300 times, more than 10 per cent of the total. England, bless them, are still playing catch-up. They have now played 531 one-day matches, having appeared in the first of all in 1971 (a famously rushed, accidental job when the Melbourne Test was washed out). Their leading player, Paul Collingwood, has played in 179 matches, which puts him in joint 77th place on the world list with Adam Parore of New Zealand, who retired eight years ago.

Australia will recognise the species if not the position. There are millions of gum trees around their country and right now they are up one.

Unselfish Sussex stumper has not been treated well by England selectors but must wear gloves in the Ashes.