Ruminating on Matt Prior’s vulnerability in light of the Craig Kieswetter meteor got me thinking about what might befall the make-up of the England Test team in the lead up to the Ashes this summer.

England, entrenched in the era of central contracts, are determined to mark their selection policy with consistency. A settled side is what they want when taking on Australia in just under nine months. But the Ashes also demands a tightening of selection. No more time for blooding a few players for the challenge ahead (as is happening in the Bangladesh series). This is the challenge ahead. Things can happen suddenly in these circumstances.

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Craig Kieswetter’s emergence – which threatens, in more ways than one, to mirror that of Kevin Pietersen – means it’s crunch time for Matt Prior.

England may be planning to use Kieswetter as a batsman only for the time being, but if his form continues (he has scored 31, 77*, 40*, 50 and 81 in his last five Twenty20 matches for England A as well as 143 for an England XI in today’s 50-over tour match) then it won’t be long before pundits and selectors alike will wonder why he shouldn’t take the wicketkeepers slot and remove any doubt over whether England play five bowlers. Even the Ashes may not be too soon.

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It’s been a week of brand names. And we’re not just talking about the Hampshire Royals. Seismic shifts have been happening elsewhere.

Surrey announced they are no longer the Brown Caps. They have returned to being the Surrey Lions. “I am hoping this will bring a bit of bite back to the team and give the players a positive identity which fits the direction I intend to take them,” said the man known as Grizzly, who also happens to be the Surrey cricket manager Chris Adams.

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Lalit Modi – the head man of the IPL and the Champions League T20 – has, in one move, pitted Twenty20 against the first-class game; English domestic cricket as governed by the ECB, versus his new baby, the Champions League as not governed by the ECB (who spectacularly failed to become a significant voice when the tournament was first announced).

The Champions League will take place through the climax of the English season – from September 10 to September 26. This encompasses the final two rounds of the County Championship, the ECB’s domestic one-day semi-finals and final and three England v Pakistan ODIs. (The venue for the CLT20 has not been decided yet.)

This has laid waste to the 2010 fixture list.

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The transfer window dominates the sporting pages throughout January, so news that Chris Tremlett had joined Surrey on a three-year deal may well have been lost in the mayhem (or even lack of it). Yet, Tremlett isn’t the only interesting move made during this off-season.

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It’s hard to argue with Robin Martin-Jenkins’ best County Championship XI of the decade in the February issue of The Wisden Cricketer. So I won’t. Instead I’m going to offer an alternative team that I feel could compete with his.

For those of you who can’t be bothered to open the above link, here is RMJ’s team: Nick Knight, Rob Key, Mark Ramprakash, Murray Goodwin, Stuart Law, Chris Adams (capt), Nic Pothas (wk), Kabir Ali, Andy Caddick, Mushtaq Ahmed, Steve Harmison.

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This website’s headlines get shorter.

Test matches are played under floodlights. There once was a time when football was played only during the day – before October 14, 1878. Probably about time Test cricket caught up.

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You could have been forgiven for missing the official confirmation on Christmas Eve that Rory Hamilton-Brown had left Sussex to return to Surrey as captain.

Maybe it was a blessing – a fallen giant installing a 22-year-old with eight first-class games experience as their new captain is a big story –the pressure on Hamilton-Brown is immense without extra media-interest.

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Point-scoring in county cricket is never a simple business. No three-for-a-win here. Instead, teams gather a hatful of points for a win, and then there are baffling bonuses for batting and bowling feats. Followers of the Championship are forgiven for wondering what a win means exactly. And the tinker-happy ECB has just announced more changes for 2010.

There will be 16 points for a win (compared to 14 last year) and three for a draw (four last year). Bonus points stay the same (five batting, three bowling), but teams will have 110 first-innings overs to scoop them up (10 fewer than in 2009). Quite obviously, this encourages positive cricket, and, as such, the changes should be applauded.

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With the signing of wholehearted uphill trundler Iain O’Brien, is Gus Fraser seeking to remake Middlesex in his own image? His diary reveals all…

Met O’Brien to have a chat about contracts. We walked from the Grace Gates to my office; by the time we got there we were both sweating buckets. Iain had done his hip and I had a bad feeling my left leg was going to fall off again. I was pretty bloody exhausted after the slog, so I just sat on the floor for a bit eating salt tablets and muttering. I don’t think people realise how much hard work walking from one end of the ground to the other can be.

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