It has to be the least surprising headline of the winter: England call up replacement. If there are any newspapers left that still use hot metal or cow-gum, they have probably had the words set ever since the tour party was announced. What is surprising is that the call came after only one match - one actual day's play, in fact - which is thought to be a record (even Pakistan usually wait for a week or two before sending for Shahid Afridi). Craig White must be congratulating himself on choosing to spend the winter playing club cricket in Australia. The wonder is that any regular county players chose not to.

It was always a high-risk strategy embarking on a tour with so many injury doubts, but it was also probably the only way England were going to compete with Australia. If all the injuries magically cleared up, the series might just be a contest ... but the worry now is that England will struggle to field a side at all. (Even that works sometimes: in 1994-95 England somehow won at Adelaide with a patchwork quilt of a team which had a runless wicketkeeper - Steve Rhodes - at No. 6.)

Robert Craddock, the experienced Aussie journalist, made some good points when interviewed on TV during England's first net session in Perth. "No-one comes to Australia with five injured players," he said, pointing out that the grounds are large and hard. They cause new injuries and aggravate old ones. And so he was worried that the series would be a walkover. Even hard-bitten Australians want to see a close Ashes contest, although they'd rather like Steve Waugh's mob to come out on top in the end.

What the injuries have done is show up the limitations of the rest of the England side. Does anyone really fancy Robert Key against Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne? With a rock-solid top six, the decision to call him up instead of Mark Ramprakash might just have made sense. With one of them (Michael Vaughan) fighting knee trouble and the allrounder (Andy Flintoff) recovering from a hernia, it just looks daft.

In the bowling, Darren Gough was a justifiable gamble: Simon Jones wasn't. Your young tearaway fast bowler needs to be able to run in and bust a gut, not worry about whether his side will stand the strain. And when exactly will Richard Dawson get a game?

Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain may soon have to face up to the nightmare scenario of all their injured players being unready to rumble.

It's interesting to wonder, in that case, what the best England team might be - the one which would have been picked if the match was to be played in England, with all the county players available, rather than Down Under.

The Wisden selectors - S Lynch (Online) and T de Lisle (2003 Almanack) - considered the problem. First, we decided that if Vaughan is unfit Alec Stewart should open with Marcus Trescothick. They gelled brilliantly together when Trescothick came into the team. Stewart could even be relieved of the wicketkeeping gloves, unless some turn is expected, in which case Ashley Giles would play instead. And the new wicketkeeper would be the stateless Paul Nixon - a useful left-hand batsman who toured with England as recently as two years ago.

We consulted the Wisden Wizard, noted Ramprakash's Ashes average of 42, and inked him in at No. 5. John Crawley just survived at No. 6, although everyone always forgets that Alistair Brown has a high first-class career average too (10,567 runs at 43.84), and isn't just a one-day biffer.

If the bowling is Gough-free and Jones-less the call should go out to Martin Bicknell. He's still bowling like a dream, and is a similar type of bowler - pinpoint outswing - to Andy Bichel and Michael Kasprowicz, who take stacks of wickets at the Gabba. Andy Caddick and Matthew Hoggard would take the new ball, with White (despite his modest record against the Aussies) in there for Flintoff as the batsman who can fill in as the fourth seamer who can be relied on for economy. White is also the only real reverse-swinger if Gough and Jones are missing.

So our team would be: 1 Trescothick, 2 Stewart, 3 Butcher, 4 Hussain, 5 Ramprakash, 6 Crawley, 7 White, 8 Nixon (wk) or Giles, 9 Bicknell, 10 Caddick, 11 Hoggard.

Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden.com.

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