Marcus Trescothick: Too much limited-overs cricket is dulling appetite for the game

So England finally managed to beat Australia in a one-day international this summer at the seventh attempt. By then did anyone really care?

Seven matches in a limited-overs series is far too many. It is overkill in the extreme and if we continue to go down that route it could kill the game.

The matches weren't great viewing and it concerns me that a series like that, in which the outcome was inevitable halfway through, will deter the cricketing public from attending in the future.

I accept there were good crowds for each of the fixtures, but how quickly those that bought tickets this time will be attracted back remains to be seen.

It was a classic 'After the Lord Mayor's Show' scenario. The England team played as though the main object of the summer had already been achieved by winning the Ashes - which it had - and spiralled downwards dramatically.

The series seemed to me to go on forever and that is also the impression I got talking to other cricket lovers. We have to learn from that.

The way the games went suggested England have an awful lot to do to become a force in one-day international cricket and that is undoubtedly the case.

But I felt for the players who had been involved in the Ashes. They would have reached such a high when winning the final Test, and maintaining that for a lengthy period of 50-over contests was always going to prove next to impossible.

The summer will rightly be remembered for beating Australia in Test cricket and it was a remarkable achievement, considering the injuries to Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. Great credit is due to Andrew Strauss and all the players and coaching staff involved.

Now we face the toughest of winter challenges with a tour of South Africa, currently regarded as the top team in the world.

Moreover, the future for England in Test cricket is one without Andrew Flintoff. The burning question is whether we can find an adequate replacement to help us build on the Ashes success.

The one player I think might do it is Luke Wright. The Sussex all-rounder is capable of bowling at near 90mph and is a talented and hard-hitting batsman.

I'm not sure he is ready to go into Test cricket and perform consistently just yet, but I love his character and the way he goes about his cricket. He has had a good domestic season with the bat, which is encouraging.

Stuart Broad is more of a bowler who bats and, while I rate him highly, I would prefer to see him going in at nine than eight. That would mean Graeme Swann at 10 and then England would have a seriously long batting line-up.

So someone needs to step up to the plate and take Freddie's position. Somerset's Peter Trego should be a candidate, but probably needs to improve his bowling somewhat.

On the county front, it has been a 'nearly' season for Somerset, although we could put that right by beating Durham on Sunday and nicking the Pro40 League title off Sussex, should they lose to Worcestershire.

Losing the Twenty20 Cup final to the Sharks was a major disappointment, but qualification for next month's Champions League provided major consolation. We played some good cricket in the Friends Provident Trophy before going out in the quarter-finals and, overall, our one-day performances were much-improved.

The big frustration in the Championship has again been the problem of bowling opponents out twice at Taunton. If we could have won three or four home games, instead of one, we would have been right up there fighting for the title with Durham.

No-one is more frustrated than the players and, in my new role as captain, I shall be pulling out all the stops to try to ensure something effective is done this winter to alter the nature of our pitches.

To get the best out of new overseas signing Murali Kartik we need to provide him with pitches that take spin on the third and fourth day.

It's not as simple as digging up the square, as some supporters have suggested, because if you do that the rules state you cannot play on it for two years.

We have already tried several ways of trying to make the surface deteriorate during the course of a four-day game, none of them successful, and it's a case of continuing to experiment with different grass seed and mixtures of top soil.

I would love to be captain when Somerset win the Championship for the first time. To do that we need to make home advantage tell in the same way Durham have this season.

As this is my last column of the summer, I would like to say how much I have enjoyed commenting on international and county cricket for the this paper over the past five months.

I hope readers have found the views expressed here interesting and look forward to providing more as Somerset skipper in 2010.

Interview: Richard Latham