Absolutely Plumb
Created | Updated Jul 13, 2006
Heading For A Fall?
The biggest sporting question of the summer isn't 'Why did Eriksson
only take four strikers?', 'What was Kieron Fallon playing at?' or 'Will Federer ever be beaten?'. Well, it shouldn't be. The question we should all be asking as we prop up the bar is 'What the hell are the ECB and Duncan Fletcher playing at?'
Every great team has a crisis now and then, but most give themselves
at least a fighting chance of getting out of it. Not so with
England's cricketers; unstoppable heroes before the turn of the year,
Fletcher's team are in serious danger of becoming the laughing stock
of world cricket less than a year after the Ashes-winning
triumphs.
It's not the decline that is particularly worrying as much as its
severity and the fact that no-one seems to know how to arrest it.
Retaining the Ashes and doing at least a vaguely decent job in the
World Cup seem a long way away – the priority for now seems to be to
somehow avoiding disgrace at the hands of Pakistan this week.
We all know injuries have played a part. Matthew Hoggard's hand
injury (suffered unluckily when a team-mate trod on his hand last
week), which required five stitches, meant that every one of England's
Ashes-winning attack had suffered some misfortune recently and let us
not forget that this was a side built on consistency in selection.
However, misfortune is one thing; lunacy another.
I'm referring, of course, to the selectors' handling of captain
Michael Vaughan. His knee injury has been nothing short of tragic,
but for him to be considered England's non-playing captain until he
recovers is, frankly, ridiculous. He will not play until next spring
at the earliest and will miss not just the Pakistan series, but the
Ashes tour and probably the World Cup as well. No side can perfom at
its best without a proper leader. There should be a new captain
named, who would have the chance to assert himself against Pakistan
and learn to lead his charges in the bigger challenges ahead.
Instead, we have a ludicrous situation in which Strauss has been named
as stand-in captain for the injured Flintoff, who himself is only
stand-in for the injured Vaughan. Forget Australia; even Bangladesh
must be licking their chops in anticipation.
Still, at least we have the confidence that we were able to cobble
together a one-day win against Ireland just before the hammering Sri
Lanka gave us. Nothing bodes well for the World Cup. Two schools of
thought fight their corners in one-day selection; one says the best
players are the best players regardless of the format, the other that
there should be separate teams of specialised players in long and
short forms of the game. The latter has held sway until recently, but
the tide may be turning. Hoggard, a proven performer at Test level,
with a great ability to bowl consistent line-and-length, doesn't even
get a look in for the ODIs – which is fine when the other senior
bowlers are in fine fettle, but when they were injured and the
youngsters were getting flayed all around the park in the series
against Sri Lanka, surely Hoggard had a strong case for inclusion?
Unless things get better pretty sharpish, calls for the old warhorse
Darren Gough to fly to the Caribbean will grow ever louder. Paul
Collingwood is one of the few England players to have performed well
enough to come out of the series with any credit, but he would be the
first to admit that there is something wrong when he is widely
considered to England's best seamer in any series, as he was
against Sri Lanka.
There are other little signs that all is not well. Chris Read makes
150 not out for England A against Pakistan in front of the selectors,
but cannot be considered because the rest of the squad is in such
chaos. Pietersen is now so key to the side that he played through
injury in the third ODI, risking joining the casualty list. Monty
Panesar – a true spinner with flight, guile and variation most unlike
an English spinner – seems to be in constant need of a five-wicket
haul to prove himself to Fletcher. Ian Bell is variously shuffled
around the batting order or dropped, seemingly on a whim (it has been
suggested that he will bat down at six in the first Test). No-one
looks like they might score a century in either form of the game and
bowlers Plunkett and Mahmood have yet to show what they are truly
capable of. These two, allied with Jon Lewis – Hoggard's hand injury
should not affect his bowling, but he may not be able to field - and
Panesar, may well form the attack expected to take twenty wickets
against Pakistan. I wish them all the best of luck. Now the other
World Cup and Wimbledon are over, there may be nowhere to hide amongst
the back pages in the next few weeks.
