Who captains England if Michael Vaughan’s broken finger is not risked, and who keeps wicket from a long list of candidates, are the obvious quandaries facing the selectors before they announce the team tomorrow for next week’s first Test match against West Indies at Lord’s.

There is a third, more delicate judgment to be made, however. In choosing the fourth fast bowler for next week’s match, there needs to be thorough analysis of the recurring problem of insufficient accuracy.

Trendy obsessions with all-out pace and the degree of reverse swing urgently need to be subordinated to the requirement for old-fashioned, disciplined, remorseless line and length of the kind that enabled Australia to dominate in the era of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.

Accuracy was the key to their phenomenal combined haul of 1,271 Test wickets. The recent deaths of Les Jackson and Tom Cartwright – two paragons as far as accuracy was concerned, although neither had the length of Test career for England that he deserved – ought to be taken as a timely sign. Reliable line and length should be the first qualities considered when it comes to choosing the worthiest fourth seam bowler in support of the three men whose selection for Lord’s may be taken as read.

Their haloes have slipped since 2005, but Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard have been the two most reliable bowlers of recent seasons and Stephen Harmison deserves, having proved his wellbeing for Durham, to be given the benefit of the doubt, despite his abject failure in Australia. England are a different proposition when he is bowling well.

Chris Tremlett having ruled himself out through mental and physical frailty, there are at least five prime candidates for the sort of reliably accurate bowler England have not had since Angus Fraser swapped his size13 boots for a laptop five years ago. Two of them, James Anderson and Sajid Mahmood, have been chronically inconsistent and do not deserve immediate consideration after their winter efforts.

The coltish Stuart Broad is ruled out with a knee injury and the developing Graham Onions has had a relatively disappointing start to the season. It leaves Liam Plunkett, who in the past two days has returned a five-wicket analysis on a true pitch and finally had the long bowl that he needed all winter, as the man most deserving another chance.

Vaughan suffered a broken finger when he was struck on his bottom (right) hand by a ball from Stuart Clark last week. The initial prognosis was that he would need between three and four weeks to recover. He is desperate to get back to Test cricket and it is desirable for the team that he should, but if he has to wait, Andrew Strauss is the obvious choice as captain, with Owais Shah, already threatening Ian Bell, as his batting replacement.

The position of wicketkeeper/ batsman remains the hardest to decide, as it was always going to be once Alec Stewart retired at the end of the 2003 season. Peter Moores, the England head coach, knows all the candidates well. He played against Paul Nixon; he managed Matt Prior and Steve Davies in the winter; and he knows the pros and cons of Chris Read, James Foster, Jon Batty, Tim Ambrose and Phil Mustard, the last of whom is a more likely proposition for one-day cricket. Nic Pothas, technically eligible, is a South African who has played for South Africa A, so he should and will be discounted.

The need is for a truly top-class wicketkeeper capable of batting no lower than No 7, preferably No 6, in a Test order and of averaging 35 over a long career. At the age of 36, Nixon cannot hope for that, but there is a case for him for a while if the selectors are not sure which of the others they want to back.

Read’s batting is not quite good enough. Prior’s is – his career average is 38, compared with Ambrose (36), Foster and Davies (34), and Batty and Nixon (32). Most umpires believe Foster to be the most convincing all-round package, but Prior’s nomination in the development squad points to him.

Lord’s choice

Christopher Martin-Jenkins selects his XIII

M P Vaughan (captain), A J Strauss, A N Cook, K P Pietersen, P D Collingwood, I R Bell, O A Shah, A Flintoff, M J Prior, L E Plunkett, S J Harmison, M S Panesar, M J Hoggard.