England's Tour of Australia - Ashes, ODIs and T20s 13/14

Matt Prior will have a scan after suffering a calf injury whilst batting & he was unable to take to the field with Joe Root taking over the gloves.

KP has had a cortisone injection in his knee,which has caused him problems in the past.Hopefully he will be declared fit along with Prior to take part in the 4 day fixture against a New South Wales XI on Wed 13th November.

Ashes 2013-14 umpires

Brisbane - Dar, Dharmasena (Erasmus TV umpire)
Adelaide - Erasmus, Dharmasena (Hill TV)
Perth - Erasmus, Bowden (Hill TV)
Melbourne - Dar, Dharmasena (Bowden TV)
Sydney - Dar, Erasmus (Hill TV)

England's final warm-up game is now against an Australian Invitational XI with Australia responding to England's request for them to field a strong line-up,however Test outsiders Phil Hughes & Usman Khawaja who were originally selected will now play for their state teams in the Sheffield Shield.The batting looks decent with Cowans,Finch,Ferguson & Voges all coming in to bolster the side.The rest are all from NSW & I'll admit to knowing much about the bowling aside from O'Keefe.

For England Prior has been ruled out & faces a race to be fit for the 1st Test.Bairstow will take his place.

The logic of taking Bairstow was fair enough especially now, given that Prior is struggling for fitness.
Bairstow is a decent enough keeper and is good enough to get some runs at seven in the order.
Hopefully Prior is fit in time though.

Will give them a selection headache if Bairstow does play and does well, especially given Prior's poor form with the bat over here against the Aussies but perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

I hope Carberry's going to open when the first test comes with Root in the middle order, because I don't see Root as an opening batsman and think he'll do better lower down, plus Carberry deserves his chance.

From BBC sport: Uncapped batsman George Bailey and pace bowler Mitchell Johnson have been named in Australia's 12-man squad for the first Ashes Test against England.

Bailey, 31, edged out fellow Tasmanian Alex Doolan after impressing as stand-in captain of Australia's one-day team.

Left-armer Johnson, 32, was dropped for Australia's 3-0 Ashes defeat in England this summer, but showed good form in the one-day series in September.

Meanwhile they say KP should be fit.

Really nice to see fellow Yorkshireman getting behind Bairstow.He's been quoted to say that he will be fine batting at 7,but would be immensely worried about him keeping wicket in the 1st Test if Prior isn't fit.he goes on to say that he wouldn't put him in the top 5 keepers in England.Whilst i don't necessarily disagree with him,surely we should be backing him.Let's not forget Prior wasn't the best at the start of his career & was dropped for his poor keeping & not his batting.

England won the toss & had the Australian Invitational XI in trouble at 93-5.Broad bowled well taking 3-36.Finn was a little expensive with 2-79,were then held up by an unbroken 6th wicket partnership of 178 between Nevill & Carter,the number 2 & 3 NSW keepers behind Haddin.Close 271-5.