Tim de Lisle: Hussain and Fletcher require experienced one-day specialists

England's test side is so settled at the moment, the selectors could sit down today to pick the squad for this winter's Ashes series. Barring injury or panic, only three places out of 16 are in any doubt.

The captain will be Nasser Hussain. The wicketkeepers will be Alec Stewart and James Foster. The specialist batsmen will be Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan, Mark Butcher, Graham Thorpe and one other, almost certainly Ian Bell (memo to John Crawley and Mark Ramprakash: start making quadruple-hundreds now). The all-rounder will be Andrew Flintoff. The spinners will be Ashley Giles and one other, probably Robert Croft. The fast bowlers, if fit, will be Darren Gough, Andy Caddick, Matthew Hoggard, Alex Tudor and one other, probably Simon Jones or Steve Harmison.

Meanwhile, the one-day squad is not very settled. Several of those who played yesterday are some way from nailing down a place: Ronnie Irani, despite last night's handy biffing, Paul Collingwood, Hoggard, James Kirtley. Indeed, there are more slots up for grabs in the one-day XI than there are in the Test 16. The nightmare of 1999, when Ian Austin and Vince Wells trundled their way into the World Cup party, may yet be repeated.

As he announced the one-day squad, David Graveney said that there was an increasing recognition that the best players should play both forms of the game. He and his fellow selectors promptly fielded a team for the opening game against Sri Lanka which contained four one-day specialists – Nick Knight, Collingwood, Irani and Kirtley.

It was the pronouncement that was at fault, not the selection. This was one of those apparently uncontroversial remarks which fall apart under close examination. If a player is among the best in both forms of the game, of course he should feature in both – nobody would leave out Darren Gough from either team (apart from our very own dear old thing, Henry Blofeld), or Marcus Trescothick, or Graham Thorpe. But that is not the point.

The issue is whether certain players are among the best in one form of the game and not in the other. To find the answer, you have only to look around you. The world's best one-day batsman, Michael Bevan, cannot get in the Australian Test team. Steve Waugh, still a potent force at Test level, is now a fringe player in the one-day game. In the present series Yuvraj Singh, the star of both India's run-chases over the weekend, has been quite rightly preferred to Vangipurappu Laxman, who is equally correctly preferred to him in Tests.

Clearly, one-day cricket is a partly different game which requires a partly different team. England's problem is not that they pick too many one-day specialists; it is that they don't play enough one-day games. Since being chucked out of their own party in 1999, they have played only 49 matches (14 of them against a debilitated Zimbabwe). India have slogged through 94 one-dayers in the same period, Pakistan – despite having a few series cancelled – 87. That is too many, but England's total is by far the lowest of the big nine cricket countries.

The consequences have been obvious. Experience is like an extra player or two, especially at the start of a series. England are in the middle of a curious run of six meetings with India, and in all three that have taken place so far, the Indians' superior know-how has allowed them to make the running. In last winter's Test series, England lost the first match before having the better of two draws. In the six-match one-day series after Christmas, England lost the first game and went 3-1 down before rallying to 3-3. And on Saturday, England frittered away a position of high promise to give India another winning start. Hussain and Duncan Fletcher's ability to outwit more gifted opponents may yet prevail. But that will not be much use in the two remaining meetings that have been arranged, since both are one-offs.

The first is a group game in the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka in September, which is being held, preposterously, in the same season as the World Cup; and then there is the World Cup itself in southern Africa in February and March. Of all the 43 games at the group stage, the one that most resembles a knock-out is England v India in Durban on February 26. Australia and Pakistan, the world's top two teams on recent form, are in the same group, and only three go through. If England lose again to India, they will either have to beat one of the big boys or rely on the Indians losing to Zimbabwe, the Dutch or Namibia.

England certainly will not have the edge in the fashion department. Their new one-day strip makes them look like losers even before they face the first ball. The shade of blue is an improvement, because it is darker, but everything else is worse. And the caps turn England cricketers into the staff of a New Jersey pizza parlour.