We live in historic times. Rarely in the history of English cricket have the achievements of the one-day team caused the selectors to scratch their heads over the Test side. This is mainly because the achievements of the one-day side can be summarised on the front of a small envelope, leaving plenty of room to write the name and address and slap on a stamp. But it is also a cultural thing: Test cricket is what England do and what defines them. Right now, after their first back-to-back bilateral series wins against decent opposition since 1996, the old certainties are on shaky ground.
On Friday, England announce their squad for the three-Test series against Sri Lanka, which begins on December 1 at Kandy. That will be the relatively easy bit, although the fate of Andrew Strauss - centrally contracted, remember - hangs in the balance. The tough part will be choosing a final XI. And the toughest part of all will be choosing the bowlers. If by some miracle Steve Harmison is reading this, it might be better, Harmy, if you scroll down straight to The Week in Cricket.
Let's get the easy bit out of the way first. Assuming Strauss is either left behind or fails to make the starting line-up, the two openers must be Alastair Cook and Michael Vaughan - regardless of whether the captain prefers to bat at No3. This would have two benefits: Ian Bell would be allowed to bat at first drop, which is the position he craves; and Owais Shah would come in at No6 to prove that he should be judged on Mumbai (88 and 38) rather than Lord's (6 and 4 v West Indies). Mark Ramprakash lurks in the background as a tantalising alternative.
As for the wicket-keeper, Matt Prior has to be given another chance, as much by default as anything else. Phil Mustard failed to make anything even approaching an unanswerable case during the one-dayers in Sri Lanka, and to draft in yet another new face now would reek of indecision following a 10-month spell in which the gloves have been worn by Geraint Jones, Chris Read, Paul Nixon, Prior, Vikram Solanki and Mustard. Do not, however, discount Tim Ambrose's chances of touring as Prior's deputy.
Which is where it gets very interesting. There are four places left to fill, and the Spin is giving one of them straight away, on the grounds of class, to Monty Panesar. Graeme Swann might get his chance later in the series, but with no Andrew Flintoff to balance the side, England have to hand the other three slots to seamers - otherwise it's Paul Collingwood at first change.
One of them must surely go to Matthew Hoggard, who has grown used to producing one Herculean performance per winter (Johannesburg 2004-05, Nagpur 2005-06, Adelaide 2006-07) and whose inswing against Sri Lanka's left-handed openers was so destructive two summers ago. That leaves two spaces to share between Harmison, Stuart Broad, Ryan Sidebottom, Jimmy Anderson and Chris Tremlett.
Spot No1 goes to Sidebottom, a quality bowler who proved during the one-dayers - where he bowled more overs than anyone and came away with one of the best economy-rates - that he is far from the greentop specialist we imagined. His left-armers also add variety.
Spot No2 does not - that's right, not - go to Harmison. This might sound like sacrilege given how much England missed him when they last played Tests in Sri Lanka four years ago, but the statistics tell an increasingly damning tale. In the 23 Tests since he roughed up the Australians at Lord's in 2005, Harmison has taken 76 wickets at 37 each - figures which become 65 at 42 if you take away the one game since then in which he managed a five-for, against Pakistan on an Old Trafford trampoline.
On the credit side, he will have his Durham team-mate Ottis Gibson to help him and retains the potential to win a game on his own. On the debit side, that potential has long been merely that, and the almost daily debate during the summer series against West Indies about whether Harmison was approaching his best was a painful affair. It was a complete distraction too. In what - with apologies to Collingwood's dobbers - will essentially be a four-man attack, Harmison cannot be risked, especially when he will have bowled so little in the build-up to Kandy. Harmison has done nothing wrong since he last played a Test, in June. But plenty of others have done a lot right.
Anderson has to be discounted because England cannot afford a mixture of No10s/11s in their bottom four, while Tremlett has slipped down the pecking-order since doing well against India in the summer. Which leaves us with Broad. Some feared he would be scarred for life after conceding 36 in an over to Yuvraj Singh, but they underestimated his quite staggering level-headedness, a quality the Spin experienced at first hand recently during an engaging hour-long interview.
Broad lacks Harmison's bounce and - at the moment - Flintoff's pace. But he has something of Freddie's accuracy and is meaner than both of them. He also has the ability to turn himself into a Test No8. If England are serious about building a team capable of challenging for the 2009 Ashes, they need to get him in there as soon as possible.
The Spin's England team for Kandy: 1 Cook, 2 Vaughan (capt), 3 Bell, 4 Pietersen, 5 Collingwood, 6 Shah, 7 Prior (wkt), 8 Broad, 9 Sidebottom, 10 Panesar, 11 Hoggard.
Extract taken from The Spin, Guardian Unlimited's weekly take on the world of cricket.
