The Brain on the box

If you have seen the Test squad and thought that ritual suicide was the proper answer to the omission of Michael Vaughan, you can put away your disembowelling weapons.

The announcement may spell doom for Ian Bell, we may have seen the last of Steve Harmison and Owais Shah may spend the rest of his playing days with Middlesex.

But there is no chance that The Brain will have to move out of his Derbyshire mansion, rent a slum in east Sheffield or vanish from the Broad Acres altogether.

I can reveal that he has had dinner recently with a Sky TV executive so that if he has played his last Test for England there will be a place on the gantry for him far into the future.

The wish to have him aboard the good ship England runs right through the dressing room and unless Ravi Bopara turns out to be the new Bradman - and how many do? - Vaughan will be back just as soon as he has put together enough runs.

Plenty of time - there are still 117 days to the end of the Ashes

Writers' block

Long, long ago, when everyone knew their place or were often reminded that they must bow to their superiors, a group of (probably) bored cricket writers following England round Ausralia, formed the Cricket Writers Club.

(That is the MCC logo upside down or back to front by the way. It may tell you a lot about the mindset of the cricket writers of the day.)

All those guys have gone to the great press box in the sky now of course but those who have to deal with 2009 know that the world has changed.

The old guys decreed that the CWC must not act as a trade union which may have been wise in 1946. Now, 63 years on, the constitution of the club badly needs a rewrite. Its officials spend a lot of time negotiating withe rulers of the game about the use of wi-fi, how many seats will be needed in these days of easy travel but difficult newspapers finance and who should sit in those seats because - and this may come as a shock to you - some people will lie about their credentials to get a free seat at a Test match.

If that is not the work of a trade union, I misunderstand their function.

Sadly, there is no appetite within the club for a changed constitution. Remember the case of the three reporters who lost their contract to cover matches and did not know until their heard on the grapevine.

When a debate was offered on this subject at the annual meeting of the CWC this week there was silence. I trust those who remained in their seats never face the same problem, continue to enjoy the lively and entertaining annual dinner and their marvellous way of life.

But if they have not seen the writing on the wall they may find surprises in the next few years.

SNAFU

There are still 72 days before the Ashes

The Brain is back
82 will do
Michael Vaughan
But Cook is still crook
Harmy has faded
KP and the rest look jaded

Perhaps it is our destiny
To watch our heroes swept away
Here we go again

Cafe talk

"Two coffees, one with, one without, one black tea, no sugar."

Young player: "Can I get a tea latte, please."

The veteran and I try to ignore him.

"What about Freddie, then," says the vet.

"Should never have gone. Whoever is supposed to be in charge at ECB should have put his foot down with a firm hand. Ashes more important, you don't need the money, take a rest," I give it.

"Four overs a match is a rest. He's still a great bowler, but his batting's gone. No timing, no power, no confidence," says the wise one. "He's getting on too. 31, it's no age to keep getting injured and the papers say it's a injury that is deteriorating. Not good news. But lets wait and see."

"He's all right is Freddie," says the kid.

There's a fan behind us. "I reckon ECB knew he'd gone in the knee and thought 'you might as well go to South Africa because you're not going to play in the Ashes anyway.'"

"They wouldn't do that," says the vet. "Lets wait and see."

"Freddie'll be all right, hopefully," says the kid.

The waitress brings the drinks. "Which is the tea latte," the wet child asks.

"The black wi no sugar," she says. "By the way I saw you batting yesterday's. Keep still, you'll never make runs dancing round like a tart in a nightclub."

"That's not very nice," says the lad, blushing. "I'm just trying to express myself."

"As for the rest of you, leave poor Freddie alone. He should 'ave gone, earn a few more bobs, kids to bring up, not long left, credit crunch."

"You just don't understand cricket," we say in chorus.

A limp joke

Andrew Flintoff and Johnny Wilkinson met in the street. What did they find to say to one another?

Ouch!

We told you so

Well, didn't we?

Andrew Flintoff is flying home after three IPL games in South Africa with a knee injury to have an operation that will keep him out for between three and five weeks. He will miss the Test and one-day series against West Indies and will not return to international cricket until the World Twenty-20 in June.

We all guessed it would happen.

Flintoff, 15st and 6ft4in, never holds back, He has had more operations in recent years than any star cricketer and at the start of the Ashes summer it was madness to allow him to play in the IPL, however many dollars it would bring him.

Whose fault is it? Today the blame is being shifted faster than a Flintoff bouncer

You may have thought that, as players like Flintoff, Pietersen and Collingwood have watertight contracts they could not possibly fit a trip to South African into the tiny break between the return from the Caribbean and the start of our summer.

You may have been foolish enough to think the ECB's officials would have stamped their well-shod feet and said: "Don't be silly. You need the rest and a steady build-up to the Ashes."

The Board would have been praised to the skies if they had been strong enough to resist. Cast your mind back to September 2005 when the nation responded to the team success with greater gusto than at any time since the Botham era.

Now it looks as if there will be no reason to celebrate and in the meantime we will keep our fingers crossed that this Flintoff injury can be sorted.

If I was a conspiracy theorist I might even wonder if they let him go because they suspected he would not stay fit for the five Tests against Australia. I'm not and my fingers will be crossed just like every other cricket lover's.

Time for Tim

Just in case you - or the selectors, but what do they know? - are looking for a promising young fast bowler who can bat take a look at Tim Bresnan who might easily fill in when the going gets tough late in the summer.

You will remember our failures. Straight off the top of my head I can name Plunkett, Kabir Ali, Jon Lewis, Pattinson, Sajid Mahmood, Kirtley, Amjad Khan and now, so it seems, Hoggard and possibly Harmison who are filed as Pacemen Unwanted. I bet you can think of a dozen more.

Bresnan appears to come into that category after five one-day-internationals but each time he begins a new season - and he is still only 24 - he has taken a stride forward.

That's all. Just watch the lad. He bowled about as well as Hoggard for Yorkshire against Durham this week, only Adil Rashid took more wickets for the county last summer and he also helped Jason Gillespie put on 246 for the ninth wicket against Surrey by scoring one of his three first class hundreds.

Before you say "I could hit a hundred off Surrey" let me add that he also made 124 not out for England A against the Indians in 2007.

As they say at Headingley "this lad has a bit about him" but it is time he proved it with some startling figures. He has been promising far too long and between now and the end of the Ashes series he must put himself in the spotlight. Only 122 days to go, Tim.

Quitting time

With 78 days to dawn before the Ashes begin, cricket is in suspended animation and in any case the World Snooker Championship is in full flow.

(By the way, if you ever thought cricket had bad administrators, look more closely at snooker. Wow! They did not secure a sponsor for this year's event until the last minute even though the championships set TV records for viewers all the time.)

I still have a lot of time for this other elegant game, where the players call fouls against themselves, where the referees have the lightest of grips and where the watching 1,000 in the Crucible behave with impeccable good manners.

For a couple of years I ghosted Steve Davis's articles, offered him advice - he was 20 when we met - once lent him a fiver which was repaid at our next meeting before I had remembered and gave him his first sip of red wine.

A nice man, from a nice family although to my amusement, the invitations to his parties ceased the moment my main focus became cricket.

Now, aged 51, he has been beaten 10-2 in the first round and says that may be his last attempt on the world title. So I can offer him another piece of advice.

Quit while you are still an icon. Don't struggle on. Accept that we all grow old. You will be surprised how easily retirement feels once you let go.

Michael Vaughan faces the same problem. His 24 for Yorkshire against Durham today did not prove anything. If the runs refuse to flow this summer I hope he will see that once the tide turns against you a graceful retirement is the only option.

Have bus, still travelling

Long ago Alec Bedser told me that in the days of his youth, before coaches, before one-dayers and long before match referees and television replays he used to wait in the lobby of the team hotel every morning until one of the local fans offered him a lift to the ground.

I know it is true because when I attended my first Test against India at Headingley in my teens I - naturally as it seemed to me then - went by train from York, walked across the road from Leeds station, and caught a bus. The Headingley Special it was called and it was packed.

After play I - like the other thousands who had been sitting on the grass at the boundary edge all day - queued for the bus to take us back to the centre of the city. Next to me in the queue was Allen Watkins, Glamorgan all-rounder and rarely an England player, was standing next to me with his wife. He had been fielding all day.

In 2009 Paul Collingwood, Watkins's successor has a FWD the size of a small bungalow and if he is not a millionaire, he soon will be. Good luck to him. Watkins was 87 yesterday and I suspect shakes his head every time he remarks on the have-nots of his era and the haves of today.

Whither weather

The Indian bosses, bless their innocent minds, turned down England as a venue for the IPL because it rains a lot in April. Ha! Today a spot of fog at dawn has given way to glorious sunshine. In South Africa it has been wet and damp, even a T-20 match has had to be reduced and rain is forecast. The only truth about the English weather is that no-one has its secret but that it is more than capable of vengence on those who think it fits into a formula.

The harsh reality

Cricket may be the elegant game but it is also the harshest, governed by folk brought up to believe in their own absolute power.

Take Matthew Hoggard. Go on. I bet you had forgotten him. He was the workhorse in the England Ashes attack four years ago, their nightwatchman of choice and he had, by the standards of quick bowlers, a good cricket brain.

Hoggard has written a book which relates what went wrong at the end of his Test career. His wife Sarah had depression, he was thousands of miles away in New Zealand and, not surprisingly, his figures in the first Test read 26-2-111-1.

So, just as unremarkably, he found himself close to tears as he walked past Michael Vaughan on his way back to his mark. "I think I am going cuckoo," he told Vaughan. "I am doing a Tres." No-one ever forgets what happened to Marcus Trescothick. He got depression so badly he quit touring and Tests.

Instead cricket quit Hoggard, He was dropped for the second Test and, even when England were so desperate for his sort of bowling - at Headingley, on his home pitch - they called up Darren "Who?" Pattinson as Hoggard was on his way to the ground to act as a radio summariser.

All those sad moments might be written off as a blip in an otherwise glorious career save for the fact that no-one rang him, e-mailed him, faxed him or sent so much as a terse text, to ask how he and Sarah were until he was told that he was not to receive a contract this year. It will be no consolation to Hoggard to know he is among a big group of people who have been dropped without an afterthought.

A lady I know has trailed round the world in the hope of getting the permanent Test Match Special statistician's job one day and when Bill Frindall died she thought it might be offered.
Instead it has gone to another scorer. So far not a word from the BBC whose many executives have urged her to be patient; she knows just how Hoggard feels.

So too do three journalists who heard a rumour that they were to lose the contract they have relied on for many years and had to ring to find it it was true. Yes, another organisation has been appointed, they were told. They would have been less angry if someone had made a phone call that began "Sorry, but . . . "

It is, of course, the boss's right to choose but his measure will always be decided by the way he carries out his choice. Perhap that is why the poet wrote "April is cruellest month."

What's the hurry?

With 81 days to go before the Ashes, England's selectors have - sensibly - allowed themselves another nine days to pick the team for the first Test against West Indies at Lord's.

Oddly, it needed an off-the-cuff comment from Ian Bell to wake them up to the fact that there was no hurry.

The first West Indies Test does not begin until May 6 which is only 33 days after the return from the Caribbean and only three weeks into the English season.

Why did they want to get so far ahead of themselves, particularly when the basis of the side is already dictated by the contract system?

For as long as I can remember the side has been chosen on a Friday evening - originally over dinner in a hotel dictated by venue of the captain's county match - and made public on Sunday morning for Tests beginning on Thursday.

Times have changed. The captain gets no more than a whisper in someone's ear ahead of selection rather than a place at the dinner table and the role of the chairman is all-important.

Cricket is still such an old-fashioned game that the meetings between Geoff Miller, the chairman, and his co-selectors Ashley Giles, until quite recently the only member of Michael Vaughan's think tank, and James Whittaker, a player and administrator all his adult life, are sometimes dictated by the venue for one of the 150 or so after-dinner speeches Miller makes annually.

There is only one question at their next meeting; how can Vaughan be shoe-horned into the side? Miller's men need his brains but they cannot find him a place unless he makes a big score in Yorkshire's first county match against Durham next week-end.

If he could get fifty or more he will be No.3 at Lord's. It would be a true irony if he sneaked in ahead of Bell who asked why the selectors needed to pick the side so early after making 172 that seemed to ensure his own place.

Bell tolls too little

82 days to go and long enough forIan Bell to compile at least one score that exceeds expectations. He averages 40-plus in Tests, he has a top score of 199 and sometimes he looks the part of the gritty, never-say-die No.3 that Bob Woolmer promised he would be ten years ago.

But this Bell never tolls beyond what you might call his mean average. This week against Somerset - where the pitch is much flatter than the local scrumpy - he made what has been described as a giant nudge in the side of the selectors but ought to have scored a double hundred and contrived to get out 25 runs short.

So it not surprising that the selectors are looking round for someone else. Owais Shah, he of the leaden feet and the slow reaction time; Ravi Bopara who will I suspect always look like a one-day batsman looking for the right batting place in a Test line-up; or Michael Vaughan, one of the England greats, but at what stage in his career.

There is no clear cut answer although I wish that Mark Butcher, a batsman meant to be a Test hero, might shed a couple of pound and five years and make a dramatic comeback.

A Warne-ing

We might have thought we had seen/heard the last of Shane Warne after all those years of torment, starting so dramatically with the Ball of the Century that dismissed Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993.

Well, it aint necessarily so.

Warne will be writing and talking and generally making a thorough nuisance of himself all the way through the Ashes series. In fact he has started already.

He writes weekly in The Times - whose No.2 cricket specialist Richard Hobson ghosted his autobiography - and no doubt he will be on BBC radio and Sky TV and Channel Nine when the action begins.

Warne was on BBC Five Live this morning, saying that while Andy Flower was a "good man" his appointment would not mean any loss of sleep in the Australian camp who would be more concerned about the quality of the players. Does he believe that? Maybe.

You are never sure about Aussies, are you? I first went there in 1982 with the Bob Willis tour and thought "wonderful country, wonderful people." By my third or fourth visit I realised that the people are like that vast continent which has an impressive outer edge and nothing in the middle.

A huge generalisation, you'll think. Yes, but intellectual Australia hides in Melbourne, mostly round the university, reads The Age and has nothing to do with the outsize majority of the 20 million or so inhabitants who think a good time consists entirely of watching the "footie" and the cricket, drinking a few bottles of "grog" and sneering at the laundry habits of any nearby "Poms".

Beware. It is not the whole story. There are cunning Aussies too and one of them used to bowl the nastiest collection of leg breaks, googlies, top spinners and whatever he cared to call his other - mostly straight on - deliveries and who is now trumpeting Australian propaganda whenever he can find anyone to listen.

If he had not smoked while advertising the merits of quitting, texted one fewer girl and not put on so much girth we might not have had to debate whether he was the best captain Australia never had.

He is still the greatest spin bowler the planet has ever seen. If you have any doubt, ask him. I think I know what the answer will be.

Handy Andy, England coach

We meet in a coffee shop just up from the ground: JB a pro for 30 years, AA a lad on the fringe of the county side and me, part time rough village cricketer 50 years ago.

"Flower?" asks JB. "Why Flower?"

AA: "Players like him. Freddie told me. Got to respect his achievements. Top of world batting for Zimbabwe. It's Hadlee collecting wickets like postage stamps for New Zealand. Defied Robert Mugabe too. Big gesture, brave man."

Me: "Henry Olonga defied Mugabe too. Where is he nowadays?"

JB: "Rather, where is the Flower coaching experience? Did the Board need to get head hunters to find one of their own? As for players approving, I'm not sure that's good. They might think he's a soft touch."

AA: "KP says he's tough. Doesn't say much but one glance tells you to put your box on straight."

Me: "Can he push them hard enough to win back the Ashes? Brains is not sure to get enough runs, Matt Prior catches one and misses two, Harmy is up one minute and as soon as Newcastle lose a Premier League match he is right down again and as for Panesar . . ."

JB: "AA, you faced Monty last summer?"

AA: "Yeah, couple of times. Good, regular left armer, no indipper no dozra that I saw, runs in quicker for his faster ball. I don't know if you noticed but I'm neither KP nor Vaughany and I didn't have a worry. Really I had more trouble with Flower's brother, every ball a new life."

Me: "Perhaps Andy will get the brother to coach Monty. That would be a novelty. No, they've got Mushtaq, another liquorice all sorts."

JB: "They want somebody out of the old days. Illingworth, Underwood, Titmus, Pocock. They knew all the tricks. I don't suppose Flower will see much in them."

AA: "Finish your coffee and lets get on the first tee. As for Flower we'll have to wait and see."

Me: "Congratulations AA. You have won an extra cube of sugar for using the cliche of the year for the millioneth time."

AA and JB in chorus: "You just don't understand this game, do you?"

Lets have a laugh

They've asked me to pick
My man of the year
It's oh dear, I fear

My golly, not Colly
Broad needs no reward
And KP is (sometimes) too silly

That leaves Anderson
A grim fairy story
Or Strauss's perpetual grin

I've gone for the Smiler
To win - sporting A Flower
In his buttonhole

Tresco rules out return

Hark to us
Marcus
We need you

You too,
Reborn ,
Michael 'Brains'
Vaughan

And a fit
Simon Jones
Reversing

Before
Ponting's
Pretenders
Invade

Lord's waiting

Most of those who have played cricket are all too aware of frustration.

I am. My school did not play other schools. Bizarrely, it was because the headmaster - R C Shorter, just imagine what we called him - took umbrage when his choir was booed for winning at a local music festival and decided his teams would never compete again.

A new headmaster brought inter-school sport back again, I was chosen and when I got home that night I discovered that I had a date for a long awaited operation. Debut delayed, of course; and the operation kept me out for the rest of the summer.

When debut day dawned for the second time the rains fell with a ferocity that only North West Yorkshire can produce and when I finally reached the crease I got a first-baller.

Yes, frustration enough to make me sympathise with Michael Vaughan, England's finest captain turned Test hopeful, back in consideration at No.3, desperate for the chance to make a big score but thwarted by the decision of the MCC captain Rob Key to bowl, a long innings by the weight-reduced Ian Blackwell and now the rain.

The forecast is for fine weather but we all know the only certainties in life are death, taxes and damnable, mocking, incorrect forecasts of sunshine, when the reality is rain.

Vaughan must feel as if his best choice is to quit and apply for the post of England director of cricket even if he has few technical qualifications and the post is already going to Andy Flower. That way England get Vaughan's brain and reputation as an Aussie beater and end his mighty frustration.

Still with 136 days to go to the end of the Ashes there is still time for Vaughan's luck to turn.

All too mellow yellow

My postman knocked twice but left the 2009 Wisden on the doorstep. Was it a symbolic gesture; has the daffodil yellow tome become too much of a burden?

I have wondered repeatedly in the last few years how long it can last. This summary of the past, necessarily out of date by the time the postman fails to deliver, costs £45 which will bring you a decent meal with a bottle of wine in many restaurants at a time when paperbacks sell regularly for two packets of fish and chips.

There are more Wisden discounts than Monty Panesar appeals but in this era of Sky Sports, CricInfo and all the other modern gizmos, is there room for an annual however beautifully produced?

Besides, even the first reading suggests it is written, in the main, by old men for the even older. So I was glad to see that Dean Wilson, a young black writer on the Daily Mirror, has been given a spot although his subject - the demise of British Caribbean cricketers - fitted him all too neatly.

Much of the rest of this hefty book reminds us of the truism, from a man who sometimes proves that the loudest vopice in the dressing room is not necessarily the most foolish, that "there are no young people in cricket."

Still as the editors of Wisden sharpen their quills for a new edition they must wonder how long the old codgers will be able to fork out half a pensioner's weekly allowance for a book whose time has surely come.

Rest is best

With 91 days to go, that dour, serious and sombre man Ricky Ponting intends rest ahead of the Ashes while his pals play the one-day games against Pakistan. Good thinking on someone's part but will he get the chance to put his feet up or will fame and celebrity mean he has to be up and about when he ought to be having a genuine snooze.

Andrew 'Smiler' Strauss has been made to rest during the Twenty-20 World Cup this June. Good thinking if he is allowed to forget all the duties that go with the Test captaincy, being a professional sportsman and making a few pounds.

I have never doubted that the stars, from those multi-millionaire GP drivers, the rich beyond the rich Tiger Woods to the humblest pro darts player, are overworked.

Too often it is their own fault. They see an opportunity to increase their wealth and one more day of rest is crossed off their calendar. I recall a former England captain complaining to me that he was tired. "But, you went to that silly little tournament in Canada when you could have rested," I reminded him.

"Well, it was just a week and we got a fistful of money," he said. Yes, but, you look as if you needed the rest and how many runs have you made since?

So relish the time away from cricket Ricky and Andrew; but make sure the temptation of the quick buck is not a temptation. Remember the end of the Ashes is just 138 days away.

Don't cut me off at this point. I have a solution to England's batting problems.

Wisden have just named Claire Taylor as one of the five cricketers of the year and there are plenty of good judges around who think she may be the finest woman batter of all time.

The next step requires such a lot of lateral thinking that I know it will be automatically rejected by even the most liberal of cricket logicians.

"Of course she cannot play in the men's Test team: she will be out for nought every time/killed by the first bouncer/bring the game into disrepute/make me a laughing stock at the golf club."

There will be a licking of his pencil stub by Disgusted of Doncaster, a rubbing of hands by some Health and Safety jobsworth intent on keeping the world secure and a whole raft of MPs will break off from fiddling their expenses for a full minute to draft a bill that requires every England batsman to be male, more than fifty per cent masculine and, er, a man.

All right, I give in. I do not really expect that prolifiic run-scorer and elegant stroke player Ms Taylor to be called up for the first Test against West Indies at Lord's on May 6. But one day an England woman will play in a full Test.

Remember it is only 50 years since women were allowed to race more than 800 metres and now their times for the marathon compare favourably with those set by their supposedly stronger, faster and more durable brothers.

Stick around 50 years and you will see I am right. Of course by that time the first Test will be against China, consist of 10 overs a side, fielders will wear baseball mitts, batters will be forced to wear full body armour and the ball will be made of cotton wool.

93 days to go and the lunatics have taken charge of the asylum. Not for the first time but we are living in 2009 not 1946.

Back at the end of the second World War Surrey appointed Major Nigel Bennett to the captaincy when all he really wanted to do was to pay his subs. He was mistaken for Major Leo Bennett; the result was a season that owed more to comedy than cricket as he angered one player after another with his odd decisions.

Have the England selectors learnt nothing since that moment of pure farce? No.

They have today named a Twenty-20 squad of 30 cricketerz with one thing in common. They do not want to captain their country, probably because of the way Michael Vaughan was worn out and Kevin Pietersen was chucked out because - well, your guess is as good as mine.

Unless Strauss declined the honour - which I doubt after watching his enthusiasm for leading every other England side - it is the silliest decision in a year of crass thinking.

The three big bears - Flintoff, Pietersen and Collingwood - have all said they don't want the job; Cook is so wet behind the ears there is no towel big enough to dry them; and Mascarenhas has not played often enough. Rob Key? Not if Sambit Patel can be dropped because he is out of shape.

No, the obvious solution is to play Strauss as an opener who bats through and allows the glorious stroke makers to blaze away. You know it makes sense. But not the selectors.

Lets hope the new coach - aka the director of cricket - has more idea because the appointment of a captain will be left until he - aka Andy Flowers - is in place. Its about three weeks until he takes over the asylum.

Revival or what?

I have waited 48 hours to decide if England's impressive victory in the final one-dayer against West Indies is a corner turned; I am still dithering.

The members of RACC (otherwise the Regal Association of Cricket Correspondents) have come to the conclusion - seperately I hope - that once Flower is made coach and Strauss is appointed captain again a procession round Trafalgar Square with the little urn held high is assured.

I think we may have to wait until the end of the West Indies series in the cold, wet and windy England next month to settle that question. First we have the IPL.

If Flintoff returns to his millionaire's village home unscathed, if Pietersen goes back to his posh pad in Chelsea with a bagful of runs I am willing to believe in the miracle that will be The Return of the Ashes.

That still ignores the worries about miserable Harmison, whose obsession Newcaste United are as good as relegated already, unhappiness at No.3 and the sad wicket-keeping of Prior.

Let us assume that Flintoff, Anderson and Panesar are the main bowlers, we can trust that a fourth will be found from Broad, Mahmood, Rashid and Swann and a host of no-nos.

However no-one must tell me that Owais Shah, Bopara or even Vaughan offer safety at first wicket down lest I blow a gasket. As for Prior, he is more likely to be the right man for the No.3 spot than an adequate keeper.

As president of the CROC - roughly translated as Cricket's Regal Order of Cynics - I wait with little optimism for victory 141 days away.

Odds off

97 days remaining - and England are outsiders already while you need six dollars to win five if you are a fan of Australia.

Doesn't that say it all.

Flintoff's future

98 days to Cardiff: How do we ensure that Flintoff is at his peak when we attempt to wrest back the Ashes?

He has not taken five wickets in an innings nor hit a century since his last England glory days in 2005. The Ashes have disappeared and the men who threatened to lead the world rankings have lost captains and Tests. Desperate times; only the world's bankers have fared worse.

England need a major rethink. Is that possible for the ECB who appear to be hidebound by the central contract system on the one hand or so desperate that they propel bowlers like Darren Pattinson and Amjad Khan into action without pause for thought.

While I am on the subject of confused thinking, did you ever hear anything dafter than ECB employing head hunters to sort out a coach. Surely most of the ECB men who will make the final decision will have met, played against, dined with and shown round Lord's every one of the half dozen candidates.

Confused? I'll bet big, likeable, heroic Andrew Flintoff is.

I suggest the selectors sit him down, discuss the coming Ashes series with him in an adult way and then ask him - most politely as befits a treasured member of staff - to return to Lancashire until July to top up his wicket and sixes count for the biggest moment in the England calendar.

Sensational or sensible? There is no time to mess about. Don't forget the Ashes series ends in 145 days.