England will reveal which players are to receive the 12-month central contracts on Tuesday - and the presence or otherwise of Michael Vaughan's name will be most intriguing.
Former captain Vaughan is expected to be among the dozen rewarded despite his lack of form for county side Yorkshire since relinquishing the Test leadership to Kevin Pietersen.
Only Michael Atherton captained England on more occasions than the 51 Vaughan managed and no-one comes close in the wins column.
But the selectors must look beyond the sentimental vote and consider whether he is still good enough to feature for his country over the next year.
National selector Geoff Miller will reveal the decision at Lord's at the same time the 15-man squad to take part in the £10million Stanford challenge and seven one-day internationals in India is announced.
Since quitting in the aftermath of a Test series defeat to the South Africans last month, Vaughan has been unequivocal in his desire to extend his international career and participate in another Ashes series next summer.
But he has failed four times with the bat for Yorkshire since and is running out of time to prove his worth ahead of the Test squad to tour India being announced on September 29.
In truth, he has been living somewhat on reputation as a batsman during the past injury-plagued three years, having shown only fleeting glimpses of the class that made him man of the series in the 2002-03 Ashes defeat and elevated his status briefly to that of Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara.
There is also the matter of how he copes post-captaincy, should the selection be favourable.
"We should applaud him on the England captaincy for the period he did the job," said former team-mate Graham Thorpe.
"But former England captains getting back into the side have found it different adapting to life back in the ranks.
"Michael Atherton did it fairly well, Nasser Hussain didn't do it as well, I would say. It is not always comfortable going back to being a foot soldier."
Centrally-contracted players are chosen primarily on their perceived worth over the following 12 months - although the award to Andrew Strauss a year ago broke the mould somewhat when he was subsequently left out for the tour of Sri Lanka.
Few changes to the 2007 set are anticipated, although Vaughan's county colleague Matthew Hoggard will be one man to drop out of the equation.
The one-day party also virtually picks itself after the crushing 4-0 victory over South Africa in the recent NatWest Series.
The unchanged XI for those matches, supplemented by Ravi Bopara, Alastair Cook, Graeme Swann and Ryan Sidebottom, if fit after a back problem, can prepare to board the flight to Antigua ahead of the November 1 showdown with Sir Allen Stanford's All Stars.