If there’s one type of cricket article that we hate, it’s the ‘what about this potential England wicketkeeper?’ one. There are too many mediocre candidates and all that happens is that the picture gets murkier.  Nevertheless: we miss Phil Mustard.

In one way it’s perhaps for the best that joint dismissals with his Durham team mate Graham Onions aren’t being brought to international cricket headlines, but all the same, he has a zestiness (or is Mustard always fiery?) about his cricket which is conspicuously absent from England’s one-day side.

The England wicketkeeping place is currently held by Matt Prior, of course. We think a lot of Matt Prior (we reckon he could get in the Test side solely as a batsman and his wicketkeeping has been excellent this summer, much to the chagrin of many) but wouldn’t he benefit from missing a few one-dayers?

Players like Paul Collingwood, James Anderson and Matt Prior, who play for England in all three formats, have one hell of a workload. The first two look jaded at the minute and after 1 and 0 in his last two innings, Prior does too. Games off for these players are no bad thing, particularly when you consider that Prior only scored the second of his two one-day fifties earlier this summer against the Windies. He’s had 42 one-day international innings, so that’s not a great return.

Phil Mustard’s not in the form of his life this season, but he’s going pretty well and he still seems like fundamentally the right sort of player for one-day cricket. You can’t leave your way to a challenging one-day score (not since Mitchell Johnson got his eye in midway through the Ashes anyway) and Phil Mustard likes to hit the ball. There’s a gleeful simplicity there that England’s one-day side has rarely seen.

King Cricket blogs at www.kingcricket.co.uk. He is a cult figure in the world of cricket blogs and was TWC’s first Best-of-blogs winner in April 2008.