Michael Vaughan's omission suggests England should award fewer central contracts, says Bob Willis.
England must become lean, mean Test machine, says Bob
So now we know the 16 players most likely to feature in the Ashes and I can't say I'm shocked that Michael Vaughan is not among those names.
I couldn't see any case for his inclusion in the training squad announced on Monday and so thought the selection was absolutely correct, if predictable, given the circumstances England find themselves in.
The party includes a reserve batsman in Ian Bell, two reserve seamers in Ryan Sidebottom and Tim Bresnan and a reserve spinner in Adil Rashid presuming that two slow bowlers do, as expected, play in the first Test against Australia at Cardiff.
Lucky
I'm not surprised Shane Warne and Brett Lee have come out and expressed surprise at Vaughan's omission because there is always a bit of psychology involved with the Aussies ahead with the Ashes.
But I'm afraid as far as Michael is concerned we can't turn back the clock, not to 2005 or back to 2002/03 when he had that purple patch in Australia. It's now a long time since he scored a lot of runs on a regular basis for England.
I've said before that Michael should probably pack it in and do something else, but according to all of the reports I hear he is enjoying his cricket at Yorkshire despite not getting any runs.
I can't help thinking he was a very lucky lad to get a central contract last time around. In fact, the England management got it wrong when they gave one to him and Steve Harmison.
At the time it was evident that Vaughan was going back into the county ranks to try and find some form and clear that Harmison should have been encouraged to do the same thing.
In many ways Harmison has responded but he's obviously just as happy playing cricket for Durham as he is for England, probably even happier!
All of this plus the failure of Tim Ambrose, Luke Wright, Samit Patel and Owais Shah - all of whom are on incremental contracts - to make the 16 makes me think that the system needs looking at again.
Yes, you must be able to rest players who are going to be at the nucleus of your Test side but you don't want a lot of players on contracts who aren't playing a lot of cricket; I think fewer central contracts will be handed out come the end of the season and that we will see a much leaner looking centrally contracted squad.
If a 12/13-man squad comes through the Ashes unscathed - by that I mean injury-free - then those guys should be rewarded with contracts but that should be it.
Focus
In a similar way I would have preferred to see England name a 13-strong training camp this week but I can see Andy Flower's reasons for expanding the group a little.
He wants to get a group of guys together and give them a chance to get the World Twenty20 out of their system before they focus completely with Andrew Strauss on the job in hand.
To my mind that would be easier to do with 13 players rather than 16 in the squad because unless an injury comes along, there's no way that Bell or Tim Bresnan are going to be involved in the Ashes.
Anyway, that's being hyper-critical. The selectors have done their homework and know they will need two spinners at Cardiff.
Like me they don't think the groundsman there can prepare a pitch that isn't going to turn and turn early, so they are giving Monty Panesar the chance to put his Northamptonshire form behind him and show the selectors that he rather than Rashid should play at Cardiff.
But if Monty bowls poorly against Warwickshire then I don't think the selectors will have any hesitation in playing Rashid ahead of him because for a young man he's done everything asked of him and he should have had more of an opportunity last winter abroad.
It will be a very tough ask for Rashid because although the pitch is going to turn the boundaries are very small at Cardiff. I'm impressed with the lad; he is not the finished article by any means but has bundles of potential with bat and ball.
Fixation
The difficult decision - whether Panesar or Rashid plays - is which seamer to leave out? It will be very tough to overlook Graham Onions on current form but it looks as though he might be the one to miss the boat; if Andrew Flintoff is fit to play, then 12 into 11 doesn't go.
I doubt whether Flintoff will have to bowl 100s of overs at Cardiff so even if he isn't completely fit I don't see his inclusion as too big a gamble. James Anderson and Stuart Broad are better bowlers now and should be able to play a containing role as well as go on the offensive and not throw that burden onto Freddie as well.
As for the Lions side that will face Worcestershire, I'm very surprised by three of the selections for that match. What are the selectors saying? They've seen Vikram Solanki for 10 years, so I don't see the point in him playing at all, while they seem to have a strange fixation with Stephen Moore and in Steven Davies have chosen a wicketkeeper whose talent has shone through in one-day rather than first-class cricket so far.
England could have done better with those three slots. Presumably Tim Ambrose will play for Warwickshire against England, so the selectors can have a look at him against the best, but James Foster did pretty well in the World Twenty20 and at the moment I would have thought he was in front of Davies when it comes to Test match cricket.
All in all, I think it is a little bit of a sop to Worcester that the names of Solanki, Davies and Moore are on the Lions list.
