The torrential rain at Chester-le-Street on Friday morning allowed Peter Moores, the coach, and his co-selectors David Graveney and Geoff Miller the opportunity to hold an important discussion about the future direction of England’s one-day team, battered, bruised and belittled as it is after a shambolic World Cup campaign.

The trio, bolstered by additional input from Andy Flower, Moores’s assistant, arrived at a significant conclusion: find the best strategy, then fit the players to it. This departs from recent practice, which was to choose the best players and allow them to play as they sought fit – which tended to mean devising policy on the hoof. If this change in philosophy sounds abstract, its principal consequence should not. Michael Vaughan is set to be retained as captain for the two Twenty20 matches and the three one-day internationals against West Indies starting next week, and to be charged with implementing the new approach.

The case in favour of this decision rests largely on Vaughan’s abilities as leader and strategist. Against it stand his record (no century and an average of 27.2 in 86 ODIs), his performances since his comeback in January (only two scores of more than 30 and an average of 21 in 12 matches) and his admission that he will not be around for the next World Cup, when he will be 36.

Knowing that his record is chequered and that his fate lies in the hands of others, Vaughan has been careful not to defend himself too vigorously in public, but since making his comeback his position has been consistent and firm: he has no intention of quitting one-day cricket and he believes that the captaincy for Test and one-dayers should be held by one person.

Whatever Moores might think about Vaughan’s merits as a one-day player, it would be a pretty big argument for such a new coach to pick were he to demote his captain against his wishes.

So Kevin Pietersen’s ambitions of leading the one-day team, not to mention Paul Collingwood’s, must be denied for the time being. In the case of Pietersen, this may not be a bad thing, for while there are plenty of precedents for making the best batsman captain, there must be a danger that the job would distract and diminish him as a batsman, so self-absorbed is he, and so much original thought does he put into his craft.

Guessing what England’s new philosophy might entail is hardly rocket-related science. It should involve better fielding (the Schofield review recommended the appointment of a full-time fielding coach, remember), more varied and disciplined bowling (left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom is a shoo-in) and something that is long overdue, beefed-up batting at the top of the order.

The simplest way to inject some pizzazz into England’s early overs might be if Marcus Trescothick returned to the side, but despite speculation that a recall could be imminent, there is no immediate prospect of this happening. Trescothick has yet to indicate that he is ready and willing to resume international cricket and nobody is going to push him to come back unless and until he feels that he is ready.

Vaughan has opened in all his 12 ODIs plus the Twenty20 international in Sydney since his return from knee surgery, and he can be expected to continue in that position, but the identity of his opening partner is less certain. Ed Joyce, Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell have all opened with him this year and remain contenders to do so again, but so do Alastair Cook, Vikram Solanki, Matt Prior and possibly even Ravi Bopara.

Cook scored runs in the two one-dayers he has played to date and such has been his success in Tests that he deserves an opportunity ahead of Strauss, who should be rested. However, Cook’s fielding might count against him, as might England’s anxiety to spare a young man burn-out.

As more aggression is plainly needed, Prior might be the best option now that he is more established with England than he was when he opened in India early last year.

With time, more England-qualified batsmen with experience of scoring hundreds in 50-over cricket will become available. Already the enlarged format for the 50-overs county competition, introduced last year, is bearing fruit. In 2005, seven hundreds were scored by England-qualified batsmen. In 2006 that figure rose to 22. This year, with the semi-finals and final still to go, the tally already stands at 34.

The problem if Prior opens the batting is how the middle order would be arranged, especially in the absence of the injured Andrew Flintoff.

Should Bopara, in excellent form with Essex, remain where he finished the World Cup, at No 3, and if so, where are more predictable strikers of the ball to be placed? Can Bell or Cook fill the No 7 position with anything like the effectiveness achieved by Mike Hussey for Australia, or should the place go to an allrounder such as Rikki Clarke or Alex Gidman?

For next week’s Twenty20 matches at The Oval, England are expected to resist the temptation to pick players who made reputations as Twenty20 specialists in county cricket. In fact, there are few of these. Darren Maddy is one and James Benning another, but Maddy’s 50-overs record does not support his case and Benning is too inconsistent.

Surrey’s left-arm spinner Nayan Doshi has taken more wickets in Twenty20 than anybody but offers little with the bat.

Changing philosophy is all well and good, but the selectors know that they must make changes in personnel too. After such a miserable winter, there is a need to be seen to be obviously doing something. Of the World Cup squad, Flintoff and Sajid Mahmood are unavailable through injury. Of the others, the likeliest to join Paul Nixon in feeling the axe are Joyce, Liam Plunkett and Jamie Dalrymple.