Andrew Strauss was named this week as the England Player of the Year. Deservedly so. Only James Anderson was close to being as effective through the 12-month period, and he didn't have the burden of leadership thrust upon him at the start of the year in the most difficult of circumstances. Because he is not a dasher like Virender Sehwag or as powerful as Graeme Smith it is easy to overlook just how effective an opening batsman Strauss has become.

Despite leading England, he will have only the second highest profile of left-handed openers from Middlesex going into the Ashes series. More attention will be heaped upon Phillip Hughes, but I expect Strauss to score more runs over the five Test matches. And, despite all the criticism levelled against Middlesex when they signed Hughes for the start of the season, the argument which rang hollow at the time is beginning to resonate.

The county was lambasted for allowing Hughes to acclimatise to English conditions. Well, scores of 118, 65 not out and 139 suggest that he didn't need long - no longer, in fact, than he would have enjoyed had Cricket Australia blocked the signing and told him to find his way in the warm-ups before the first Test. The advantage is not now with Hughes, but the England selectors and analysts with opportunity to scrutinise his unorthodox technique.

At 20, Hughes is the latest young Australian with a special talent. But he will struggle to play as well as his reputation demands, as evidence of some of his baggy green forebears shows. Ian Craig was 21 and Donald Bradman incarnate when he came to England in 1956; he scored 55 runs in four innings. Doug Walters, fresh from National Service and again with the Bradman tag, hit a moderate 343 at 38.11 in 1968. Walters never cracked England.

Hughes has not suffered the same comparison - if being "the next Ian Botham" scarred a generation of England all-rounders then imagine having to match Bradman - but the swashbuckling way he hits through the off side, rarely suppressing his instinct to attack anything wide has added to the hype. Against swing bowling, that could be a dangerous game. And England, thanks to Middlesex, will know him inside out.

Talking a good game

You can take a man from Australia and even give him a fat county contract, but it won't take the Australia from the man. Damien Wright, the Sussex overseas bowler gave a great example this week in an interview with CMJ which began with the reasonable assertion that breaking Ricky Ponting would go a great way to breaking Australia and proceeded to talk up another nine of the probable squad. You'd think the 1948 "Invincibles" were about to land.

England will actually receive a party needing to show that decline has been stemmed. It will lack a spin bowler of international class and contain a disproportionate number of players either making their way at this level (Hughes, Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus) or returning from injury (Shane Watson, Brett Lee, Stuart Clark). Just don't expect to hear that message anywhere between the extremities of Perth, Brisbane, Darwin and Hobart.

Australia do self-promotion so much better than we do. Back in 1997, my first year covering cricket for The Times, I earwigged a conversation in the Edgbaston press box between Jack Bannister, a real stalwart of cricket and writer with The Birmingham Post, and David Lloyd, then the England coach. Bannister had watched Australia play in South Africa the previous winter and wanted to talk about some of the newer players. It went something like this:

Bannister: "Matthew Elliott, he could be a handful when he gets going."

Lloyd: "Is he as good as Michael Vaughan?"

Bannister: "Er, well, there's a decent bowler too, Jason Gillespie, hits the deck and moves it around."

Lloyd: "Is he as good as Chris Silverwood?"

Fortunately, Bannister didn't go on to note that a certain spinner was still turning it quite nicely because even Lloyd's optimism may have baulked at asking whether Shane Warne was in the same league as Ian Salisbury.*

All over for Vaughan

Those of us who care for county cricket owe a great debt to Kevin Howells for keeping the Championship in the public ear via the airwaves of Radio Five Live, otherwise polluted by interminable phone-ins and football gossip. So it was disappointing to hear the laconic Cumbrian continue to give an Ashes context to Michael Vaughan's growing list of failures for Yorkshire.

On Wednesday evening, a couple of hours or so after Ravi Bopara completed the hundred against West Indies which must surely end debate over the number three position for Australia, Howells still observed that Vaughan was running out of time before the first Test in July. The sentiment was correct, the tense wrong; Vaughan's time has gone.

Having asked to be considered purely on form, his first-class scores this season are 12, 24, 20, 5 and 16. There is also evidence of his right knee playing up again having been forced to leave the field for treatment in a game this week. John Westerby of The Times, who watches a lot of Yorkshire, believes the dicky knee may be cautioning Vaughan sub-consciously against transferring his weight onto the backfoot.

The story of Vaughan's quest for an England recall carried validity last month. I was among the journalists who traipsed around to speak to Mitch Claydon after the Durham bowler had claimed his wicket in the curtain-raiser at Lord's. But the tale has run its course. Give the man a break. Vaughan should be allowed to enjoy the rest of his cricket for Yorkshire as his final England contract runs down, and enjoy Bopara along the way.

* In the 1997 Ashes, Elliott scored 556 run at 55.60 while Gillespie took 16 wickets (in four Tests) at 20.75. Silverwood and Vaughan didn't figure for England; Lloyd may have been thinking long-term in the second case.