Let's end Cook debate quickly and hope Jimmy stays healthy, too

Peter Hayter looks at the key issues that England must address in 2017 and where they might go with them.

- Peter Hayter

The scriptwriters scribbling away at what’s in store for England’s Test cricket are currently grappling with more plot lines than The Archers. No doubt the next 12 months will contain the familiar head-spinning mix of twists and turns and moments no one could have seen coming.

But by the time England’s Test cricketers start 2018 with the final Test of next winter’s Ashes in Sydney, the fate and future of at least three prominent characters will have been decided and several key issues resolved.

The first and most pressing issue is just who will be leading them.

A straw poll conducted on the final day of England’s fifth Test against India in Chennai, where, if anyone needs reminding, they conceded 759-7 and lost by an innings and 75 runs to finish the series 4-0 losers, would have been all but unanimous in reflecting the widespread opinion that Alastair Cook’s captaincy was over.

Most observers were persuaded that Cook had earned the right to make the decision himself, some, including the BBC’s cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew, went on record to say that time had passed and it should be taken out of his hands, presumably by Andrew Strauss, his former batting partner and now director of England cricket.

But pretty much all were agreed the time had come for him to be replaced and that he himself thought so, too.

Not only had he flagged up the possibility in advance of the tour in an interview in which he appeared to relish the prospect of going back to the ranks for the final part of his excellent career but, by the end of the tour his body language was shouting: “ENOUGH.”

Perhaps most telling was his frank assessment that, under him, England had stagnated during the previous 12 months,