Step 13, don't drop Ponting

The Schofield report into why England were a bit embarrassing during the winter was released earlier today. It consists of 19 "step changes" (Good grief, line one and we're already into managementconsultancyspeak), which largely involve giving every player an "individually tailored" fitness programme, playing fewer matches (no 40-over stuff) and giving David Graveney less power (or possibly more power, it's not clear).

If only Ken had asked Line and Length's view, I could have given him a much more simple action plan. So here we go:

1. Don't start a Test series against the best side in the world with less preparation time than the cast of an average village pantomime
2. If that means sending a second team to a second-rate one-day tournament in India beforehand, so be it
3. Don't take people on tour who haven't played for the past year, especially if they are still carrying injuries
4. Don't make your leading bowler and most explosive batsman the captain as well. Especially when another man has done a perfectly good job of captaining England to a 3-0 win over Pakistan
5. Don't mess around with your best fast bowler's action, even if he is bowling straight to second slip. Let him work it out himself
6. Pick your best spinner, the one who has been taking all the wickets (hint: he has a beard)
7. Pick your best wicketkeeper, the one who averaged 40 against Pakistan the last time he played Tests a couple of months earlier
8. Keep wives and families involvement in the tour to a minimum. Try to restrict yourself to only one rock concert a week. It started to look as if you were on holiday rather than touring
9. Take the chairman of selectors with you. And stop calling him the "convenor". It sounds as if you don't trust him
10. Don't bat Pietersen at 5. Or Mahmood at 8
11. Use your best spinner properly, as an attacking weapon rather than someone to call on for a few overs before lunch with the field spread
12. Don't allow your bowling coach, the man who had a large part in winning you the previous Ashes, to defect to the oppo
13. Don't drop Ricky Ponting on 35 when Australia are 78 for three. Talk about a missed chance
14. Don't sweep Warne, Kevin
15. Don't sledge Warne, Colly
16. If given a chance to win a Test (viz Adelaide) bat with purpose not timidity
17. Leave a stray cricket ball on the edge of Australia's training area, just on the off chance that Glenn McGrath might trip on it and sprain something
18. Don't win the preceeding series. You know what the Australians are like when they're angry
19. Never forget that you had been a very good side for the previous two or three years, the best apart from Australia, and that the main members of that almost brilliant side are still playing and still at the peak of their game. There is no reason why the likes of Pietersen, Strauss and Hoggard cannot win back the Ashes, except for self-belief

Comments

[james burney]

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