Time for Tudor and Co to lead the charge

As the England season enters its last couple of weeks, the selectors are being forced to rely more on guesswork than usual. Injuries have denuded the side who will soon fly off for what has become the rather farcical ICC one-day tournament in Sri Lanka, and confused the selection of the squad for Australia, which will be announced on Tuesday.

The injuries which have kept Darren Gough out for the season, and Andrew Caddick for two Tests against India, have allowed in Simon Jones and Steve Harmison. They both seized their chance well enough to increase the selectors' options.

It is stretching the imagination almost to breaking point to suggest that Gough will be fit for all five Tests in Australia. It will be little short of a miracle too, if Caddick lasts the full series, in the unlikely event of him not producing one of his recent Headingley performances and getting the chop.

His showing here has been better than at Headingley, although he may have been a trifle lucky with Sachin Tendulkar's wicket. The ball might just have slid past the leg stump. Caddick can be frustratingly inconsistent and his limbs have an unhappy fragility, which raises question marks for Australia.

Both Gough and Caddick are past 30 and entering into the twilight zone which, for fast bowlers on Australia's hard surfaces, comes earlier than in England. No doubt the selectors' inclination will be to take them both, but this might be a risk too far in view of all the recent evidence.

The history of Anglo-Australian Test matches in Australia since the war shows that the Australians have always been vulnerable to raw pace. Frank Tyson (1954-55) and John Snow, helped by a very young Bob Willis (1970-71), both played a major part in retaining and then regaining the Ashes. Of course, the present generation of Australian batsmen have grown up with Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee and the others, although these fast bowlers play all too little part in their own domestic competitions. Nonetheless, it would never do to underestimate the current Australian batting.

For all that, Jones and Harmison are the most exciting cricketers to have appeared on the English scene recently. Jones, at Lord's, and Harmison, at Trent Bridge, both showed that they are fast and more organised than one had been led to believe and, with their different styles, will complement one another. These two with Matthew Hoggard and the post-hernia Andrew Flintoff could easily have the Australians scratching their heads.

Then there is Alex Tudor, who had them jumping around at Perth four years ago when Steve and Mark Waugh were his first two Test victims.

It may seem sacrilegious, but one cannot help feeling that England would be better off looking forward to the new rather than back to the old. There is no substitute for youthful fitness – in Australia more than anywhere.

The spin department presents fewer problems. Ashley Giles has become the resident spinner without ever much looking like bowling a Test side out, although he has taken useful wickets. He is accurate and fits the bill when his captain wants him, as he did yesterday, to slow things down by bowling over the wicket into the rough outside the right-hander's leg stump – an excruciating form of "attack".

The other option is Richard Dawson, who played one Test match against India, in Mohali, last winter. He may well end up a better bowler than Giles and will probably find himself in Adelaide at the Academy, ready in case the call should come – which it may in Sydney. Alas, though, there is still no sign of a competitive wrist-spinner in county cricket.