[Richard]

It's pretty obvious that England selectors take ages and sometimes fail completely to recognise that a player good at one form of the game can (and is - quite often - too) be poor at the other. Usually it's good at Tests and crap at ODIs, too. Which means that ODIs are usually the form that suffer most.

I can't see any option as the next ODI captain (and above all I hope and pray that Vaughan's Test captaincy credentials aren't called into question the coming summer) without some serious caveats. Pietersen genuinely does seem the best option - and Pietersen as captain has the potential to be a recipe for disaster in several areas. It also, of course, has the potential to be a phenominal success and knowing Pietersen it'd be odds-law that it would end-up being. But I don't think it's a decision that could be taken without a hell of an ominous feeling.