England hope World Cup success can provide springboard for Ashes

As the cricket calendar gets ever more crowded it must be getting confusing for players as to which form of the game, and for which side, they are playing next.

After the one-sided test win over the West Indies England gained a similar convincing victory over the same opponents in the 50-over international series. After a brief stop-off with their counties for the first half of the domestic Twenty/20 Cup the England players have now joined up again in time for the start of the Twenty/20 World Cup – keeping up?

There is no Andrew Strauss in England’s squad of course so you're going to miss out if you fancied placing a bet on Andrew Strauss. As Chris Gayle so eloquently pointed out, Strauss' game isn’t perhaps suited to the smash and grabs style of 20/20. So in his absence the responsibility falls once again on Paul Collingwood to steer his side through the tournament and a form of the game which began in England but has seen them under perform in it in recent years.

Collingwood will hope those players, who were involved in the test side, the likes of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ravi Bopara, can take the confidence gained from those victories over the West Indies into this tournament and give his side the momentum. Much hope will rest however on the performance of the so called Twenty/20 specialists, such as Essex wicketkeeper James Foster and all-rounder team-mate Graham Napier, Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid and Middlesex batsman Eoin Morgan.

But as great as success in the T20 would be, we all know that the real focus is on the forthcoming Ashes series.

As Ricky Ponting sat in his news conference the day after his Australian squad arrived on English soil last week he knew the talk would not venture far from the old tussle that recommences in July. And true to his prediction most of the questions asked by journalists were about the Ashes rather than the Twenty20 World Cup.

But that is only to be expected after such a thrilling series in England in 2005 and the embarrassing white-wash in 2006/07. In many senses the contest starts now, with mind-games and psychological blows ready to be delivered. If England can find success in the 20/20 tournament and harness the support of the home crowd they could try and claim a small psychological victory ahead of the first piece of Ashes cricket action in Cardiff on July 8th. In a series that is predicted to be close, it could make all the difference.