Lawrence Booth looks ahead to England's 11-match one-day winter, and suggests what needs to be done 1 Establish a gameplan
England's cricketers have seldom if ever had six solid weeks purely in pyjamas before, so here's the perfect chance to think about nothing else before the World Cup in South Africa in 2003. By the end of the fifth game in New Zealand, the loose ends must be tied up. Ben Hollioake or Paul Collingwood? Jeremy Snape or Ashley Giles? Andy Caddick or Matthew Hoggard or both? Apart from successes at home to Australia in 1997 and in Sharjah in 1997-98, England have spent the years since the 1992 World Cup tinkering unsuccessfully with their line-up. But the next competition is just over a year away, and the time for experiments will soon stop.

2 Be flexible
If the wicket is dry, England might be tempted to play two spinners. If it's wet, they might play three new-ball seamers. If it's in front of 80,000 at Calcutta, they might play Hollioake, the man who thinks big-match nerves are for wimps. If it's 3,500 at Napier, they might not bother. Plan A must not be so rigid that it can't accommodate a Plan B quicker than you can say "poppadum fingers". At least 14 players must know what is expected of them.

3 Don't force 12 into 11
The temptation is to squeeze Collingwood, Andy Flintoff and Hollioake into the same side, but it is one England must resist. Assuming they want to play a spinner plus two specialist new-ball bowlers, this would mean only four top-order batsmen – in other words, a tail waiting to be docked. Flintoff's new-found expertise on Indian wickets means he must play – and his batting surely won't be as awful in the more instinctive form of the game as it was in the Tests – which leaves a toss-up between Hollioake and Collingwood. And one of them would have to share the duty of fifth bowler with Marcus Trescothick's wobblers and the offspin of either Michael Vaughan or Owais Shah. It's not ideal, but it's better than a tail that starts at No. 5.

4 Sort out those middle overs
England's big problem recently, especially on slow wickets, has been their inability to work the spinners around in the middle overs. They need batsmen who are capable of lateral thought and nifty foot-movement: Graham Thorpe and Nasser Hussain fit the bill. So England should be prepared to drop Hussain down the order and send in, say, Flintoff at No. 3, where he can exploit the fielding restrictions in the first 15 overs and get going before he meets Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. In the third one-dayer in Zimbabwe, Hussain came in at No. 7 because of an injury and used all his experience to guide England past a testing total with Jeremy Snape. Lessons like that must be reapplied if England are to rub shoulders with the big boys.

5 Win at least four games
Four out of 11 doesn't sound much, but England have to be realistic. A 3-3 draw in India would be a triumph; a 5-1 defeat would be back to square one. Somewhere in between lies the acceptable face of realism: 4-2 to India would just about do. Winning in New Zealand is not as easy as it used to be, especially as they will be battle-hardened after competing with Australia and South Africa. England might have to settle for 2-3: after all, nobody dobs it better than New Zealand.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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