Michael Vaughan, the England captain, says selection issues for the first Test in Kandy have become clearer after a morale boosting win over a President's XI.

Kevin Pietersen played himself into form following scores of four and one with a destructive 59, and reached his fifty with a typically audacious reverse sweep for six.

"I think he wanted some time in the middle because he'd had a couple of low scores," Vaughan said. "So he wanted to occupy the crease and then towards the end of his innings we saw the old Kevin Pietersen coming back with his flamboyant strokes. It was a pretty good sight for the team."

Ravi Bopara is competing with close friend Owais Shah for the number six spot and perhaps edged ahead with an assured all-round display in Colombo.

"Ravi has had a good start to the trip and is an exciting cricketer," said Vaughan. "He gets a bit of zip off the pitch and in the first innings when the wicket was playing at its flattest, he beat the bat on a number of occasions and reverse swung the ball.

"Darren Gough goes on about him all the time, saying he's a good bowler, so maybe we should use him more often.

"But Ace (Shah) was out there at the end, time in the middle will have been invaluable for him. The final XI was always going to be a tough one and I guess that number six position is going to be a tough call, whichever way we go."

Uncapped Bopara is hopeful that some confident batting and good work in the field may be rewarded with a Test debut at Asgiriya this weekend, ahead of Shah.

"My ambition was to come out here and play all three Test matches; to prepare myself for all three," Bopara said. "You have to come away thinking that you are going to play, otherwise you under-prepare yourself mentally."

"We are good mates, he's a fine player, who I have always thought is one of the best I have seen on the county circuit.

"He has a lot of talent and belief, and if it is between me and him and he gets selected I hope he goes and scores as many runs as he can for England. If it is me I hope to go out and do exactly the same."

Not much fazes Bopara and he is certainly not daunted by the prospect of facing world-record chasing spinner Muttiah Muralitharan on his home turf.

"I have been asked to come away on a Test tour and if I wasn't good enough I wouldn't be here," he said. "He is obviously a difficult man to play against, there is a lot of talk about him but we tend to forget there is another bloke who has to bowl from the other end, so there are places to score.

"I have been told that the biggest thing when you come into international cricket is the mental side of the game. You have to back yourself: your ability, your technique, everything. And I back mine. I back myself to be successful as a Test cricketer.

"I don't know how big the step is up from County Championship cricket but hopefully in the near future I should find out - I don't have any doubts."

England's bowling is more problematical, although Matthew Hoggard rubber-stamped his recall after an injury-plagued 2007 with a stunning spell of 9-3-25-5 on the second evening and eight wickets in the match.

But while James Anderson appears to be fit after an ankle scare, Steve Harmison is almost certainly out of Saturday's Test. despite a scan shedding some positive light on a back problem.

"All I know is that today he is moving a lot better, yesterday he was moving a lot more gingerly," Vaughan said of Harmison, who is pencilled in to net tomorrow. "We will have to see how he responds over the next 48 hours."

Explore Cricket

• Counties