Discredited in the one-day international triangular series, England are about to discover if they can make a fight of it in the battle for the Ashes which begins at Edgbaston on Thursday.

But coach Duncan Fletcher's original decision to ban his players from county action in this week's Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy and the current round of Championship matches seemed just plain crazy, even though he did relent at the last minute and let Matthew Hoggard turn out for Yorkshire in their game with Leicestershire.

Craig White, particularly, was banking on the four-day game against Leicestershire to work his way back to top speed after his back injury.

But if he gets the call this weekend he will go into the first Test without having played any first class cricket for three weeks and with only 86 overs of Championship bowling behind him this season.

They have brought him four wickets at 50.5 runs apiece and he needed a strenuous match to improve on those figures before running in to bowl at the powerful Aussies.

White is feeling confident with the bat and his Yorkshire skipper David Byas also believes the England all-rounder has a big score just around the corner, but so far it has failed to materialise.

In 16 innings for Yorkshire in all forms of cricket this season, 15 of which have been completed, White has managed only 239 runs with a top score of just 39 for an average of 15.93.

Regular batting and bowling are surely what White requires but after last Monday's B&H semi-final game against Gloucestershire he was forced out of action until the Test starts.

And if England don't pick White because they think he is not yet back to full fitness it will make it even more baffling why has been kept out of Yorkshire's side.

There may be a case to be made for resting Gough, who has worked hard during the two Tests against Pakistan and in the one-day series, but both Michael Vaughan and Hoggard needed to play for Yorkshire this week in order to sharpen up.

It was only after a call from Yorkshire coach Wayne Clark pointing out to Fletcher that Hoggard was out of form and needed some more bowling that Fletcher changed his mind and allowed the paceman to play against Leicestershire.

But while he has the chance to get back into the groove prior to the Ashes, Vaughan has not.

After beginning the season so brilliantly, the right-handed batsman has gone off the boil and a big innings against Leicestershire would have been the perfect preparation for the first Test in Nottingham.

England and the media that tag on to their coat tails have made the lame excuse that they have lost 11 consecutive one-day internationals because they have not enough experience of one-dayers but the fact of the matter is that the more they play the worse they get.

It is also their opinion that the one-day beatings will make no difference to what they believe to be England's improvement at Test level. We shall see.