Positives to take from England’s tour of the West Indies
Whilst the series defeat was disappointing, there are positives to be taken from the series in West Indies. Prime among these was the performance of Graeme Swann, who has surely cemented his place as the premier spinner in the team ahead of Monty Panesar. Stuart Broad also showed some progression, and James Anderson bowled well for scant rewards.
The batting, Jamaica aside, was solid and it was good to see Andrew Strauss returning to his best form. Paul Collingwood was also impressive with the bat, as was Matt Prior. People continue to talk about his wicket keeping, but we must accept that we will have to compromise if we want a keeper who can score plenty of runs. Prior is good enough to bat in the top order, which is a definite plus with Flintoff widely regarded as being too high up the order at number six.
Also positive was the willingness of Strauss and Andy Flower to make the difficult decisions, such as dropping Ian Bell and Steve Harmison.
England have an immediate opportunity to reclaim the bragging rights with West Indies visit for two tests in May/June. They will be looking to strengthen their bowling attack after they struggled to take wickets, albeit mostly on the flattest of wickets.
The worry, with the Ashes to follow immediately after this series, will be that the selectors rely on those living on past glories rather than looking to the future. If England want to become the best team in the world, they need to look beyond the next Ashes, as they have a tendancy of doing, and focus on creating a team to grow together over the next few years.
It will take more than two early summer test matches to resolve the problems that the team has, and an Ashes victory currently looks a distant prospect.
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