Spot fixing has been described in many ways in the last week. People rarely mention that it must be bloody hard work.

This isn’t to laud practitioners in the least bit. It’s to point out that choosing to rig even small elements of a cricket match involves taking on more than just the impact of a no-ball or a deliberately dead-batted maiden over. There’s almost certainly acute anxiety for one, but it’s also an extra ball to juggle in a situation where there might be a good few airborne balls already (some of which may have to be deliberately dropped, perhaps). I imagine the whole process is mentally draining.

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Kevin Pietersen may not see it this way right now, but he may one day be thankful the selectors put him out of his misery. And that day may come very soon – as early, perhaps, as November 25 and the first day of the Ashes.

Being dropped may feel like a slap in the face, especially – as Pietersen tweeted, accidentally or otherwise – when you were recently named the best player of a global tournament. But reputations in international sport can be compromised more easily than they are made. And Pietersen’s form since he made merry in the Caribbean has not merely threatened brand KP: it has proved a luxury in England’s middle order.

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Kevin Pietersen rarely conceals his emotions.

It was his impulsive decision making that first brought him to the UK, and those adrenalized assaults on South African and Australian attacks that earned him his reputation.

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Will 2010 be seen as the beginning of the end for James Anderson? It’s a despairing thought; he is surely as skilful a swinger of the ball as England has had. But his interminable inconsistency is rapidly stealing the title of England’s modern enigma from Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash.

It has been a strange year for Anderson. After a decent show in South Africa (16 wickets at 34.25) he missed the Bangladesh tour through injury and was a spectator to England’s World Twenty20 win after a surprising – and inspired – decision to play Ryan Sidebottom instead.

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Craig Kieswetter really is a sign of the times. Bred in South Africa, but playing for England; an opening batsman expected to do rather more than take the shine off the new white ball; a wicket-keeper who would be nowhere near the gloves were it not for his batting; and – crucially – the beneficiary of an enlightened selection policy.

Kieswetter can consider himself lucky he didn’t play for England in the 1990s, when his sequence of 121 runs in eight innings would have led to a punitive stint in county cricket. Just ask Ali Brown, a similarly adventurous opening batsman whose reward for making 118 against India in only his third one-day international back in 1996 was to be ignored by England for 19 months. He never scaled the same heights again.

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Think what you like about Jonathan Trott (I don’t enjoy watching him much), but the man keeps getting runs. If he carries on there is a danger that he will end up as the most under-appreciated England batsman ever.

Feted last summer, written off this spring, since he got back to England Trott hasn’t stopped, be it in England’s Persil whites or three-stripe blue.

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I have no issue with Craig Kieswetter whatsoever. He was man of the match in the World Twenty20 final and therefore has what I like to call ‘bigstagegoodknockability’ – a valuable and rare quality. However, I’ve always been a bit tentative about lauding him where many others have fallen over themselves to have low quality T-shirts made bearing the Kieswetter family crest.

Okay, maybe no-one did that, but the cricket media did seem to whip itself into a bit of a frenzy about him on fairly scant evidence. Timing is everything in sport and young Craig wrote himself quite a compelling narrative in a short space of time earlier in the year.

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Ah, pace! Welcome back. We’ve missed you.

Shaun Tait is the man. From Glamorgan’s overseas to the glamour attraction of the England v Australia ODI series in a week, he was the first man past 100mph in England and the difference between 5-0 and 3-2. He alone almost turned 2-0 England into 3-2 Australia.

Tait was magnetic. Raw pace is like sheer beauty. Many aspire to it, few possess it, and most are incapacitated by it. Tait has it and is belatedly discovering how to show it off.

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I’ve never really been much enamoured of the idea that Kevin Pietersen should bat at No.3 simply because he’s England’s ‘best player’. For a start, that should read ‘best batsman’ and for another thing, if batting him at No.3 turns him into something other than England’s best batsman, what’s the point? Right now, KP’s in the middle of a horrendous trot in one-day internationals, not having passed 50 in 16 innings.

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Every game is a big one for Tim Bresnan at the moment but today’s at The Oval especially so. Because the man who is currently opening the bowling for England, their would-be No 7 for the Ashes, has so far failed to take a wicket all series – as well as being his team’s most expensive bowler. Four wicketless games in a row would not, as the Aussies say, be a good look.

Stats can be used and abused, but this one confirms a suspicion: whenever Bresnan seems to be making a case for regular first-team action, he almost invariably weakens it soon after.

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