Sky Sports.com

Team England: Vaughan and co celebrate a wicket

This England team has potential. They still have some work to do but I would say there is more potential in this squad than there was five or six years ago, and I believe this is a squad that could challenge Australia for the Ashes next summer.

Nasser Hussain
Quotes of the week

CRICKET LIVE ON SKY
Third npower Test
England v New Zealand
Starts 10.30am, Thursday
Sky Sports 1 & HD1
Click here for live listings

Also see

• Bumble's Blog
• Mike Atherton
• Bob Willis

Andrew Strauss has scored big runs now in the last three Test matches to announce his return to top form.

It's important to have someone at the top of the order to see off the new ball and be composed, which is Strauss's forte.

For a while Strauss was trying to play like someone else, maybe he was trying to play like Marcus Trescothick, or in the absence of Trescothick, when really his job was to see off the new ball.

But he has now gone back to batting as an opener should do: he looks composed, he looks compact, he's letting the bowlers come to him and he's picking them off.

After scoring that hundred in what was possibly his last chance saloon in Napier back in March, he hasn't looked back.

It's great to see him back to form because he is a fantastic player.

It sets up the innings if your openers can get on and make a good start and that's what Strauss has done so far in this Test series with scores of 63, 61 and then of course, his century in the second innings at Old Trafford.

Poor form

Everyone has a run of poor form, no matter who you are. Five Test matches ago we were picking on Strauss, at the start of this series we were picking on Michael Vaughan, now it's Paul Collingwood's turn.

Your top six aren't all going to be in top form at the same time, there's that very old cliché: 'class is permanent, form is temporary', and it's true.

Collingwood is horribly out of form, you could see that in the second innings at Old Trafford - at times he didn't know what end of the bat he was holding - but he stuck in there and managed to see England home with 20-odd not out, which showed just what a fighter he is.

He decided to have a week off rather than playing for Durham and maybe that will be a good thing as he has played a lot of cricket and perhaps needed a rest - not least to soothe his dodgy shoulder.

As a professional cricketer, when you're out of form, you've got to go away and work it out for yourself and I'm sure Collingwood will do that and come back with some runs.

There are players waiting in the wings, such as Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara, but I don't believe in change just for the sake of it. If you're going to make changes, only do so if it's for a better player - a player who you can guarantee will score more runs and not someone who in a few Test matches' time makes you want to recall the player he has replaced.

When Shah and Bopara get big, big runs - I'm talking big hundreds and double centuries - and you cannot afford to leave them out, then you have to look at which England player is not pulling his weight.

But at the moment I think the top six are all good players and if Collingwood, or Bell, or anyone else continues to fail, then Shah and Bopara will be given their turn, and given a long turn like everyone else in this England set-up.

Potential

This England team has potential. They still have some work to do but I would say there is more potential in this squad, if you include the likes of Flintoff, Hoggard, Harmison, Shah and Bopara who are on the periphery, than there was five or six years ago.

This is a squad that could challenge Australia for the Ashes next summer.

But, they need to be putting in more consistent first innings performances - they seem to want to go down before they come up!

It happened in New Zealand when they lost the first Test, only to come back and win the series 2-1, and it happened at Old Trafford.

I would much prefer it if they could stamp their authority on a match, or a series, rather than coming from a negative position.

They might need a little variation in the bowling attack - the pace of Flintoff, or the bounce of Harmison - to give you that variation that we saw in the 2005 Ashes win.

And we need a bit more consistency from the top six, but they have enough class to do that.

So there is potential there for this England team to be a very, very good Test side.

Sideways

First things first though, England need to win at Trent Bridge to clinch this series.

Out of all three Test matches, if you would've asked me which is the favourite for England to win at the start of the series, I would have said this one because of the swing and sideways movement in Nottingham.

If Sidebottom, Anderson and Broad hit their straps, the sideways movement will be too much for New Zealand, but as I have said before, never write off the Kiwis.

They are a gutsy team but as we have seen over the last five Tests, they always have the ominous potential to be bowled out cheaply once in a match.

When you know that as the opposition, you're always in the game, so I fancy England.

Do you agree with Nasser Hussain? Should England continue to stick with out of form players or should they bring in new blood? Is this England team good enough to reclaim the Ashes next year? Let us know your thoughts by filling in the feedback form below.