I am sad that my former England colleague Chris Lewis has been found guilty of smuggling cocaine. He could have been known as one of the most talented allrounders in the world.

Chris loves his cricket and was a great team man – always encouraging people. At times because everything seemed so easy for him – the very easy way he batted and bowled, people used to think it came to him naturally. That wasn’t true, he worked a lot harder than people thought. When we were on tour and the rest of us were sleeping Chris would be up doing an hour in the gym at 7am – and after the game would be the same.

Expectations can get the better of anyone. He knew what he was capable of, but too much was expected of Chris. I loved the pressure of expectation, I loved the pressure of going to a Test match and the captain or selectors saying: “Get Dev in, he’ll bowl these guys out like he did at The Oval in 1994.” I thrived on that, but if you put that pressure on certain types of players they fade away. Because of his ability he was often judged unfairly by the press and spectators when he failed, when in fact the opposition had performed exceptionally. He could do everything – bat, bowl, field – but you could see he was burdened by that expectation, even though he never spoke about it.

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I was very impressed by the way Jimmy Anderson bowled in England’s Test victory at Durham, with confidence, pace and control. You can only beat who is put in front of you. Generally, later in the summer I’m not sure the attack will be so effective. It would be great to get Flintoff back in there, and maybe Harmison too if he is fit, but if they don’t have that extra pace then England need to look hard at using two spinners. When Monty Panesar gets it right he is one of the best left-arm spinners in the world.

Stuart Broad is improving day by day and hopefully you are going to see him put his name in lights against Australia. I can see Graham Onions featuring against Australia too. He’s done well on flattish pitches in county cricket, and even Lord’s wasn’t doing too much. Playing against Australia is totally different to playing against West Indies, but it was a decent start.

It’s good when guys like Onions do well because it gives the bowlers in county cricket something to aim for. At the same time, Onions will not be able to rest on his laurels because he knows that any fast bowlers out there, like Amjad Khan at Kent, know that with Harmison not firing there is a space in the team for a genuine quick. Now we just have to find one hitting form at the right time, who is bowling fast and believes in his own ability.

Devon Malcolm is writing weekly for thewisdencricketer.com for the duration of the West Indies tour of England in association with the Antigua Tourist Board