Cricket tips / Andrew Hughes / 28 July 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Andy Flower has enjoyed a incredible first year as England coach and has turned a team on the decline into a potent force in all formats of the game. Andrew Hughes assesses England's strengths and weaknesses.

These are happy times for the England cricket team. World Twenty20 champions, they won the Ashes back last year and are rising up the one day international rankings, in the process beating Australia 3-2 this summer. Throw in a more than respectable drawn Test series in South Africa and comfortable Test demolitions of Bangladesh and West Indies and everything in the garden appears to be rosy.

Since Andy Flower was made head coach in April last year, England have played 15 Test matches, winning nine and losing only two. It is a remarkable turnaround for a team that was on a steady decline and had just gone through the farcical captaincy of Kevin Pietersen, a calamitous period ending with the removal of both captain and coach Peter Moores on the eve of a West Indian tour.

Under Flower, England have improved significantly in a number of areas. For a start, they are a much more settled bowling unit and in English conditions, a potent one. James Anderson and Stuart Broad may be the main strike bowlers, but Flower has been careful to bring along a number of others, such as Graham Onions, Tim Bresnan, Ajmal Shahzad and Steven Finn, all of whom are ready to step up to the Test team as and when required.

The Flower regime has also seen the emergence of Graeme Swann as one of the best spin bowlers in the world. With the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan, only Daniel Vettori could be placed ahead of Swann in the pecking order of international spinners and the blossoming of the Nottinghamshire off spinner's Test career has given Andrew Strauss something that very few previous England captains have had: an attacking slow bowling option.

Another characteristic of Andy Flower's England is one that brings to mind the teams that Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan used to lead during the Duncan Fletcher years. This England side bats very deep, with Stuart Broad potentially coming in at ten. And they know how to fight. Three times in the last 18 months, at Cardiff, Centurion and Cape Town, they have put up an almighty rearguard action to salvage a draw where defeat seemed inevitable.

Such fighting spirit can only be demonstrated by a squad that is at ease with itself and happy with their leaders. Flower and Strauss appear to work very well together; they are both thoughtful, intelligent and meticulous cricketers and between them they appear to have pulled off the difficult trick of ensuring that their teams are thoroughly disciplined and professional, yet able to enjoy playing cricket.

Having said all of that, there are still areas of concern. The revival is relatively fragile and their record is boosted by heavy defeats of Bangladesh (twice) and one of the worst West Indian sides ever to tour this country, whilst their two defeats, at Leeds and Johannesburg were by an innings. There is the still the question of who should bat at number three and whether they can get away with playing Matt Prior at six in order to field five specialist bowlers. And, according to the ICC rankings at least, they are still only the fifth best Test team in the world, out of nine.

The next six months should tell us much more about how good this set of England players really are. Later in the year, there is the Ashes, of course, but before that, we have a fascinating series against Pakistan to enjoy. The tourists are [4.9] outsiders to win the first Test that gets under-way at Trent Bridge on Thursday, but they will be confident after their series draw with Australia and in Mohammad Aamer and Mohammed Asif, have swing bowlers who could prove deadly in Nottingham.