The Phillip Hughes fan club continues to expand © Getty Images

Scyld Berry, of the Sunday Telegraph, is highly impressed with 20-year-old Australian opener Phillip Hughes, who made a century at Lord's on Middlesex debut earlier this week. Berry lists two advantages Hughes will have going into the Ashes:

The first is that his opening partner for NSW is the same as for Australia, Simon Katich, so they know each other's game and Katich, at 33, is content to rein himself in, work the fielders around, and allow the prodigy to go for his shots without competing ...

Hughes's second advantage is that he is attuning to English conditions – rapidly on this week's evidence - more than two months before the Ashes. No English cricketer still playing has ever had the advantage of playing in the Sheffield Shield.