I’m counting down to November 23, chalking up four days at a time with a cross through the fifth. My intention is to leave work at 6pm, grab a bite, spend a couple of hours with Mrs R and the urchins, grab a bit of sleep and set the alarm for two minutes before play begins – every night of every Ashes Test. I can’t be there, so TV and radio will have to suffice.

I’m an unhappy bunny at the moment. I cannot understand the logic of playing Geraint Jones and not Chris Read as wicketkeeper. There used to be a law with the equivalent of a traffic speed camera which said a country must play its strongest keeper as keeper and not dilute the position to keeper-batsman. And England wicketkeepers over the ages have been just that; keepers first and batsmen second. The fact that Alan Knott became a very good Test batsmen was of secondary importance to the fact that he was a brilliant keeper. The same goes for Jack Russell. But what has happened in recent years is that, due to the belief that England don’t have a world-class keeper, then they may as well bolster the batting with any old chap who can don the gauntlets. Enter Alex Stewart, a brilliant tactical batsman and certainly competent keeper - but not world-class.

This policy is flawed and although Jones is not a bad keeper, he is not in the same class as Read. Coach Duncan Fletcher has decided that Jones’s batting acumen is too important to ignore and has used Read’s poor form with the bat in the Champions Trophy to secure the slot for the Kent man. This is like dropping Wayne Rooney from the England football team because he missed a couple of sitters in a five-a-side charity tournament.

Wicketkeeping is an art, it cannot be compromised. If England are less than confident in their batting, then bring in better batsmen (easier said than done). If Monty Panesar and Ashley Giles are going to get among the Aussies, then they need to be sure that a snick down the leg side will be caught, that a wandering Michael Clarke will be stumped and that a thin edge off Steve Harmison will not be spilled. In all those scenarios, my money is on Read - Jones has proved time and again that he is not a good enough keeper for this kind of situation.

I can hear the keyboards clicking with the argument that what’s good enough for the Aussies is surely good enough for us. True, Adam Gilchrist is also a better batsman than keeper but he would get into the Aussie ODI side as a batsman alone (which Jones would not for England), and his tactical nous is a major plus for Australia.

Consistency is the key here. My view is to give Read a long run in the Test and ODI arenas. His batting is competent if not spectacular and his brilliant keeping will help raise the general fielding standards. I hope I am proved wrong and Jones comes back with the urn and 30 series victims. But this is a point of tactical principle, and I think England have got it wrong.