Nothing like life in either India or the Caribbean

Who would you rather see coming out next? Ravi Bopara or Michael Vaughan? I know what my answer would be – and it’s not the player who will be starting at number three in next week’s first Test against the West Indies.

By selecting Bopara ahead of Vaughan, Ian Bell and Owais Shah, new head coach Andy Flower has offered the 23-year-old a passport to the Ashes. Play well at Lord’s and Chesterle- Street next month, and he will be impossible to shift ahead of the opening Test with Australia in July.

National selector Geoff Miller has admitted that Bopara has been picked on the strength of his maiden Test century in Barbados during the winter.

It was a decent enough knock, but it came on one of the most helpful wickets imaginable after Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook had shared a first-wicket stand of 229.

West Indies wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin scored 166 in the same game, but you won’t find too many commentators clamouring for him to start at number three in six days time.

Bopara is representative of a new breed of cricketers that has emerged from the early years of Twenty20 and IPL.

He can batter the ball to all corners of the field, and scores his runs at a tremendous rate of knots.

But if the opening two rounds of the County Championship have proved anything, it is that four or five-day cricket at the start of the English summer is nothing like life in either India or the Caribbean.

Patience is not just a virtue, it is a pre-requisite for an innings of substance.

With Australia hitting form at just the wrong time from an English perspective, an Ashes victory will surely require gritty resolve ahead of flashy flamboyance. And that is where Bopara is likely to be found wanting.

There is room for one Kevin Pietersen in the side, but no more.

Instead, the like of Strauss, Cook and Paul Collingwood are likely to determine England’s fate – players who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty as they get stuck into the unglamorous side of the game.

Bopara doesn’t really fit that template, but Vaughan most assuredly does.

The former captain is one of the most levelheaded batsmen around, and against a youthful Australian side, his experience of digging England out of a hole on countless occasions in the past could prove invaluable.

He has been there and done it – most notably against Australia – and when backs are against the wall, as they are certain to be at some stage of the Ashes series, he is guaranteed to come out fighting.

Not in the throw-the-batat- anything-that-moves model that Bopara is likely to adopt though, but in a more measured risk-averse manner that England are likely to need.

He has looked in decent enough nick in the opening stages of the domestic season, and while he has not been able to produce the one big innings that might have made his recall inevitable, his performances have been reliable enough to merit a return.

Because of its pivotal nature in both defence and attack, number three is arguably the most important position in the batting order.

With that in mind, surely an older head is better than a hot one.

AS someone who found himself on the wrong end of Roy Keane’s stare on more than one occasion, I’m still happy to see the former Sunderland manager back in football. The game needs more managers who are prepared to state their mind.

But the alarm bells started ringing as soon as I saw Keane taking charge of his first training session at Ipswich, with lifelong lapdog Tony Loughlan by his side.

Keane made a lot of mistakes during his time at Sunderland, but most would not have mattered had he had an experienced number two by his side.

He needed someone to take him to one side and say, ‘That’s the wrong way to handle that’ or argue, ‘Why don’t you do it this way and save yourself a lot of trouble’.

Instead, he ploughed on regardless, digging himself into ever-deeper holes and retreating further and further into his shell when his employers started to question his results and methodology.

There is a lot to be said for having people you can trust around you, but sometimes it is more important to appoint the best man for the job.

Loughlan might have his qualities, but experience at the managerial coal face is not one of them, and it is hard to see the former Leicester youth coach challenging his friend head on if things begin to unravel.

At the moment, Keane doesn’t need a yes man. As his time at Sunderland proved, he needs someone who is prepared to say no.

THEY might have been knocked out of the competition almost two months ago, but Middlesbrough could yet have a major say in who wins the FA Cup.

Why? Because of their habit of losing to the eventual runners-up.

In each of the last four seasons, Boro have been knocked out by the side that have gone on to lose in the final of the cup.

So where Man United, West Ham, Man United (again) and Cardiff have led, are Everton about to follow on May 30?