English Rose On The Nose?

England in disarray after the complete failure of their middle order at Headingley and the indifferent approach of Jimmy Anderson several predicable things have happened in the last few days. Predictable, because they have all happened before. In English cricket circles, when the side looses, it becomes a national pastime to stand about the streets with birch branches and whip one's self into a self flagellatory frenzy before turning on the selectors, players, curators and anyone else vaguely related to the result.

So in the last few days we have had post mortems of the most horid and postulations about a future which must return blindly to the past. Demands, threats, panic and all of this just mounts on Strauss and his men as they try and prepare for a match they must win or their task lies undone. A drawn series will be failure: just ask the fish and chip owner on the corner.

Perhaps the most damging revelation is the news of a spat between their best player, Flintoff and the skipper, Strauss. As the story goes, Strauss didn't want Flintoff to play at Headingley despite the big fella making himself available. I'm not sure it plays out quite the way it reads in the papers but regardless, if Flintoff believed he could play, even if in the manner of the de-limbed Black Knight in The Holy Grail, everyone in the cricket world would have backed him to bite the Australians arms off. Strauss and the selectors should have shown faith, after all, they keep picking Bopara at 3 and if that's not an act of faith then you and I are unlikely to ever see one. I'm sure if Ponting could have pushed the green button to include Flintoff or the red to exclude, there would have been no colour blindness problem and like all good snooker players, it would have been the reds first.

The English press, in supposed positive look-to-the-future mode, have called on the selectors to include any combination of Keys, Ramprakash or Trescothick to bolster the English batting. Please! As Nassar Hussain said, "all of thos players had issues when they played for England and we want to call them back?" They are yesterday's men by choice and by age and should stay there. Perhaps Boycott or Botham would consider a return. At least Sir MCC has gone to his rest, perhaps the only way not to be considered for a recall by some quarters of the popluar media.

Until Headingley, England led the series and had won more sessions than the Australians. They had squared a tight draw, had the better of another and won at Lords. At Headingley, they chose their team badly when they had the choice to do otherwise. They have the players in this squad to come back but the real question is do they have the mental toughness for the job against a now rampant Australia? Trott must bat at 3, Collingwood at 4, Bell at 5, Prior 6 and Flintoff 7. As they are playing for a win, Swann and Panesar must play. This leaves only two spots for seamers and Onions should be one of them. Losing seemed to really hurt that lad. That leaves one spot for Broad or Anderson. Both have good claims but Anderson worries me. If he wasn't physically injured as the team media men claim, then he disappeared soon after Australian passed England's first inning total. It was Broad who stood up and its Broad who is a target of the Australians which means they rate him. He is yet to wilt under their pressure. Anderson is the better bowler but Broad turns up for every Test match.

Australian selections later. Some clues already on these pages with the interview of Andrew Hilditch.