English cricket has plodded along quite nicely in recent times. Historic success in both Test cricket and at the T20 World Cup internationally; a domestic game that is thriving as never before.

In other words, it is overdue to shoot itself in the foot, and the England and Wales Cricket Board dutifully loaded the chamber with a bullet or two on Thursday.

The latest independent review for Lord's looks certain to be ratified, destroying the viability of the county championship in the process.

Lovers of the county game are incandescent - and rightly so. The county system remains flawed but changes have to be clear-minded and sympathetic. David Morgan's hopeless Goldilocks compromise is a crass and mindless piece of banal managerialist vandalism.

The Morgan review should certainly be binned for the county game's own sake. But is it going to hurt the England team? Some think so, arguing that county cricket is owed the credit for England's new-found and still-not-quite-believable excellence. Can that really be true, though?

No-one would dispute that their climb to the top can be traced back to May 2009. Since then in Test cricket England have W20 D7 L4, winning eight out of nine series and drawing away to South Africa.

Funnily enough, Andy Flower was appointed coach on a permanent basis in May 2009 and Andrew Strauss was just getting used to the captaincy crown. And what of the players who have led the success? It is unfair to dwell too much on individual contributions as the current 'Team England' are very much a collective force, but as ever some are more equal than others.

Three batsmen stand out over the last two-and-a-half years: Alastair Cook (2790 runs at an average of 59.36), Ian Bell (2023@72.25) and Jonathan Trott(1965@57.79). Of those, neither Cook nor Bell have done any great credit to the county system. Not only have both been in the international set up for six and seven years respectively but for most of that time they were underachievers. The tendency to score large, Test-defining scores rather than delivering in soft circumstances has emerged only since, er, May 2009.

The same could be said of key all-rounder Matt Prior, whose batting was one-dimensional and keeping inadequate when he first exchanged Sussex for England. Both have improved beyond recognition over the last two years.

Of the bowlers the undisputed stars have been James Anderson and Graeme Swann, while the supporting trio of Steven Finn, Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan have been remarkably effective given that they effectively share one place. Anderson has been in the England squad so long he is likely unsure which county won the championship last season. But Swann, a late-developer, has plenty nice to say about Nottinghamshire for aiding his rise.

Among support seamers Bresnan has had a very ordinary domestic record in recent years (54 wickets over three seasons costing more than 30); Tremlett was capped but then got lost in the system before switching Hampshire for Surrey; and Finn has done very well indeed for Middlesex.

All in all Trott, Swann and Finn are the three key players in this England squad who have arrived from county cricket and taken straight to the international scene. All have become established since Flower and Strauss took charge.

There is no doubt that county cricket will be harmed by the Morgan review but it deserves protection for its own sake. The evidence that the current set-up produces more players for England, and so drives the current success, is pretty thin.

Peter May