After limping through to the quarter finals England's players can put their feet up on their own sofas after a tour that started in autumn and has finished in spring on two different continents. Tiredness and the number of injuries to the team have been cited as an excuse since the first match which is never a good sign and should not distract from a number of issues which were highlighted in his tournament but have been present for a while. Whereas the test team is settled with replacements ready to step up in most positions the One Day side is still at the experimental stage and seems to have been for a number of years. No one still knows what the best opening partnership is or who is best suited to keeping wicket in this format.
   I'm all for putting pressure on the first team by allowing other players a chance to play and gain experience so that they can fit easily into the team if injury or form dictates and it stops the player in the starting XI from getting too comfortable knowing that a willing replacement is after his spot. An element of this occurred to the test team in the 1990s where the selectors would pick the same players over and over even when poor form suggested some needed a break. Eventually someone would make way for whoever happened to be flavour of the month at the time only to overawed by the occasion and not perform as their county statistics suggested and thus be dropped with their chance gone.
   The One Day team seems to go the opposite way where more opportunities present themselves as the matches occur at the end of a series when test players are rested and the selectors try to blood promising youngsters in the international arena. Whilst there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the philosophy it does throw out the message that the England selectors see One Day cricket as inferior and that thought process can only filter down to the players no matter how professional they are.
   If that is the case then the selectors would be better divorcing test cricket from the One Day game, both 50n and 20 over and picking completely different squads. Then after a hard test series like the Ashes those players can go home for a well earned rest as the One Day squad replaces them. Players who perform well in the limited over matches will gain experience of international cricket with lengthy runs in the team and could be "promoted" to the test squad should the need arise.
   It would certainly solve a couple of problems such as why Matt Prior was not considered good enough for the One Day squad until the series against Australia and then prove it as he was shuffled around the order but may cause further problems when test players want to play in one dayers, especially in the big tournaments.