Keep the oldies and regroup, England

13 April 2012

Where do England go now? What can we do, besides giving our guys bats which are twice as wide, and a ball that seams and spins for us but not them?

Do we make the average age of the team 19, by discarding the oldies?

Or do we re-group with the same players and build on the positive things from the Trent Bridge Test - those moments when we were in a good position?

For me, the latter is the only way to go. Chucking youngsters into the fire would neither do them nor English cricket any favours.

We need to look at the success stories to date - Marcus Trescothick, Mark Butcher, Alex Tudor, Andy Caddick - and build around these guys for the long-term future, and for the immediate future in eight days' time. Let's not allow these Aussies to waltz out of here at the end of August with a 5-0 whitewash, which would entitle them to a smirk that would turn my stomach.

The Ashes are lost, okay, but now it is damage limitation time, playing for pride time, time to make the Aussies and the rest of the cricketing world realise that out of the last 18 months, 15 of them have been successful.

England are not the terrible team some are making out now, so let's go out and show people a thing or two.

If over the next two Tests we can find another two or three success stories, we won't be too far away from having 11 players on the top of their game, as the Aussies have seemed to have over the past months or even years.

You can only say "Well played Australia." Well, that's all you can say in a family newspaper.

From memory, over the past three Tests, there was only one opportunity for England to have Australia at their mercy and that was at Trent Bridge on the Friday morning.

Unfortunately, Mr Gilchrist and his tail-end colleagues had other thoughts and yet again the pressure went back on to England. That was really frustrating for all the supporters.

The first day of the Trent Bridge Test was amazing. After England yet again failed to reach the 200 mark, they finally enjoyed the opportunity to put some pressure on the Aussies and we were able to see that they are beatable.

However, on the following day it was clear that Adam Gilchrist and Jason Gillespie had a very determined approach to see that Australia did not start bowling again until they were ahead of the England score.

Having said that, when they did bowl there was still a chance for us to put the runs on the board and at 50 odd for nought, it all looked rather rosy. But it wasn't to be, and we were left to rue all our bad luck with injuries, umpires' decisions, and so on.

Now, I have played enough to know that with all the luck in the world, and all the injured players fit, we would still more than likely come second, but we have been rather kicked in the goolies on several occasions.

They say, you make your own luck. Well England's luck-making machine must be well and truly ready for the scrap heap.

We definitely seem to need a brand spanking new one.

The man who benefited most from the 'luck' was my spinning contemporary Mr Warne - the 'has been' of leg-spin bowling.

Yet again he showed why he is up near the 400-wicket mark in Test cricket.

Once more Australia were able to show how if one bowler takes the wickets in the first innings, it acts almost as an incentive for the other three to try even harder the next time round to share in some of the glory. But let's not panic now and chuck the kids in against Warne and Co.

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Keep the oldies and regroup, England

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