Collingwood's successor

Paul Collingwood announced his retirement from Test cricket today, to no-one's surprise, it was always unlikely that England's management would tolerate another dip in his form having supported him through them on several occasions before. But they know how valuable his overall contribution is to the team and they will struggle to find a like-for-like replacement.

Morgan seems to be the "next cab off the rank" in terms of batting and it's almost become a shoe-in that he will play but that would be a mistake. Morgan is a pretty one dimensional cricketer in Test terms where his bravado with the bat wont always be appropriate as KP has discovered. James Hildreth has been mentioned a lot and is obviously in the selector's plans for the future, he has a great at Somerset but for me we need to be looking for someone who can bring a bit more to the party, my candidates would be:

Ian Bell: the bottom line is that no-one new should be coming in above Bell in the order so he will actually be the direct replacement at number 5, the question then becomes who replaces Ian Bell at 6

Ravi Bopara: slight bias as he is an Essex man, but he would be a natural fit to replace Collingwood's all round talent and batting at 6 would suit him perfectly

Tim Bresnan: we know he can bat, has a decent technique, and we definitely know he can bowl so why not take the opportunity to strengthen the bowling line up, promote Prior to 6 and play Bresnan at 7

Stuart Broad: effectively Broad is the player who is coming back into the side that played at Sydney so technically he could be Collingwood's replacement if there were no changes to the current side, keeping Bresnan.

Playing Broad and Bresnan means you have two guys to replace Collingwood's runs, as his bowling would be well covered, batting stats are as follows:

Collingwood's average: 40

Bresnan's average: 32

Broad's average: 27

So that's the batting sorted, the only thing missing is Collingwood's exceptional fielding, which may be the thing that he is most remembered for. Someone needs to come in and catch well off Swanny both sides of the wicket. The likely candidates are Bell, who is a specialist close-in fielder, Anderson who appears to be an excellent all-round fielder or Trott who fields at slip for his county.

Whichever way you look at it Collingwood will leave a strange shaped hole in the England team and it will take some filling, I just hope England selectors take the opportunity to explore all the options.