First one-day international, Johannesburg 30th January.

[Ernest]

Well the first ODI is here, but who will be playing?,seems to be a few selection problems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cric...nd/4217931.stm

Please post your match comments here.

[Paoli]

I think my teams will be:

ENGLAND:

Trescothick
Strauss
Vaughan
Pietersen
Bell
Collingwood
GO Jones
Giles
Anderson
SP Jones
Hoggard.

SOUTH AFRICA

de Villiers
Gibbs
Smith
Kallis
Dippenaar
Boucher
Pollock
Hall
Boje
Ntini
Nel.

Evenly fought contest and good luck to AB de Villiers who may make his ODI debut tonight (Aussie time). England's batting looks good but i wouldn't mind to see Will Jefferson get a look in soon. He has always been there or thereabouts. Vaughan needs a solid contribution at 3 and without Freddie or Harmison the team lacks a bit. Hoggard has to reproduce test form.

England comfortably.

[cantplaycantalk]

Well you wouldn't want to be getting up late today, you might miss it at this rate!

[Occasional Fan]

SA 5 down in the nineteenth over. Are they taking this seriously?

[John]

Just when SA fans thought it couldn't get worse it does.
I am not that depressed SA are going thru' a rough patch. After watching this morning effort 2-1 wan't a bad result in the test series.
Whats Micheal Vaughan still doing in the one day side 60 games 27 average? Hardly great stuff.
Kallis one day average 46 need I say more?

[Occasional Fan]

The issue with Michael Vaughan is presumably that he is England's skipper. No argument about his average in ODIs from me - and quite possibly he wouldn't be there if the decision was purely based on his ODI batting performance. But England have tried the two skippers arrangement before (one for tests, one for ODIs), and I don't think anyone was all that comfortable with it. Might be a different argument if the one day and test teams were totally separate - and there are some here who argue for that - but while they are basically managed centrally and as one unit rather than two (albeit with some different players involved), I'd say one skipper for both forms of the game is the way to go.

[Occasional Fan]

I was also just about to comment that SA seem to have settled a bit, but on comes Giles and off goes Kemp. You're right, John. Not one of SA's finest hours.

[John]

Maybe the rain can save us.
Interesting what you say about Vaughan. I still think unless Vaughans form improves over the next year they will have to have a rethink before the world cup. The question is would Australia let someone of average 27 over 60 games continue?

[Occasional Fan]

I doubt Australia would let someone continue with that average, but we are in a slightly different situation here. England's main priority - I hope - is to regain The Ashes. With all due respect to all the other test nations against whom we have some wonderful cricket, there is nothing that matters more to England than beating the Australians. To be clear, I'm not convinced that this year is the year for that to happen - I think it will be 2006/7 when England next tour Australia - but everything for the time being should be focused on that objective. The World Cup is a very distant second prize for England - and a totally meaningless competition as far as I am concerned which just eats up some potentially valuable test cricket time, but that's another story. Point is, England will not want to repeat the two captains experiment if it unsettles their drive to regain The Ashes within the next two years. And barring unforeseeable disasters, Vaughan is the captain to get The Ashes back for us, so he stays as ODI captain as well as far as I am concerned.

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by John

Maybe the rain can save us.

Rain never makes for good viewing though, John! In any case, presumably Duckworth and Lewis have some say over this one? Is it 25 overs or 20 which are needed to constitute a match these days?