"Pietersen has lost half his batting" © Getty Images

Siddhartha Talya: Hello and welcome to Bowl at Boycs. Joining me is Geoffrey Boycott, who'll be answering the questions you have sent in. How are you doing, Geoffrey? It's been an eventful last few days in England, both off the field and on. The latest spot-fixing controversy clearly taking the fun out of what was an entertaining series?

Geoffrey Boycott: It was an entertaining Test series in parts. It was a bit deflating at the end, when we heard about the possibility of spot-fixing. I think the wider, more important, worry for me is that the guy who the police are interviewing says that Pakistan were going to lose two of the five ODIs. Now that is real match-fixing. That isn't just spot fixing no-balls. That's really serious stuff and he was adamant in the recordings we've seen from the News of the World that they had already agreed they'd lose two. That really has serious implications.

Sooner rather than later somebody's got to get to the bottom of this and sort it out. This rumbling about match-fixing has been going on for far too long and if the ICC and all the other countries get together, find whoever is guilty and ban them for life, maybe it'll make a serious impact on other players. They should know that if they get caught doing anything wrong, they're gone. They're never going to play again.

The biggest problem is that if they're Pakistani players, they ban them and a month later they're back playing. Suspensions and bans don't [seem to] mean anything. I don't know if these players are involved or not, they're just allegations at the moment. It doesn't matter what country it is. If they find somebody and prove it, then they've got to go. It's got to be a deterrent to everybody else. The game has got to be not only clean, it has got to be seen to be clean. And somebody has to clean it up.

ST: Given everything that has happened, do you think the tour should continue?

GB: I don't know. A lot depends on what the police find out. We've all suspected that something's not quite right. We thought the major issue of match-fixing had gone away. We've heard rumours and innuendos and whispers going about something going on. For instance, there was the incident involving Danish Kaneria with another Essex player. That's in county cricket. There have been one or two things but nobody's been able to prove anything. This is the problem here. These are allegations at the moment. To take somebody to court, to ban them, you've got to be able to prove it. You've got to have sufficient evidence and that's the difficulty.

ST: We move on to our questions now. The first one's from Prashanth Venkatesh in India. He says he just wanted to know what you make of the whole no-ball controversy involving Suraj Randiv and Virender Sehwag in the recent triangular series? Do you think the ban on Randiv is justified, given he didn't break any rules? Or do you feel this is indicative of deteriorating standards of sportsmanship in the modern game?

GB: Doing the deliberate no-ball to deny Sehwag the opportunity to achieve a century was a disgrace. To me, it was bad sportsmanship, against the spirit of cricket, totally unprofessional and totally unacceptable. Sri Lanka Cricket has done the right thing in many ways by giving a handsome apology to Sehwag, to the Indian team and its cricket board.

But suspending Randiv for one match, to me, is not enough. There is no place in cricket for that sort of behaviour and he should have known that. I don't feel it is indicative of deteriorating standards in all of cricket. There are many good things going on in the game. But you have to accept that cricket mirrors the times we live in. It always has done throughout its history and probably will continue to do so in the future. If you ask me if standards of behaviour in life have deteriorated, then my answer is yes. So we will get the occasional unseemly incident like this.

ST: Our next question comes from Nadeem in the UK and it concerns a couple of players whose names have figured in this latest controversy. He asks: Is Mohammad Amir the best young fast-bowling sensation in the world? How good a pair does he form with Mohammad Asif, especially compared to some of the others around?

GB: I think he is a terrific talent. Absolutely. He is the best young bowler in the world. The only people who can rival these two, Amir and Asif, are Dale Steyn and Morkel. The tall, lanky Morne Morkel is quite sharp and Steyn is a fantastic bowler. He bowls a line and length like Richard Hadlee. James Anderson and Stuart Broad, well maybe. But Steyn and Morkel are the best two, so these two are very good. And they're going to get better. The third seamer is a problem for Pakistan and their batting, when the ball moves around and swings or seams off the pitch.

Amir is a fabulous talent. I first saw him in some ODIs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai a year-and-a-half ago or more. He had pace and movement. He was a little bit too wide on the crease so when he pitched a ball around about leg stump, it was usually pitching outside leg stump and then hitting the stumps. So he wouldn't get an lbw because he was pitching outside leg. Now he's got a bit closer and he's much more dangerous. If he can stay fit and is not overbowled, he'll just get better.

ST: Ankit from Thailand sends us our third question. He asks: How does Sehwag keep getting runs on seaming and bouncy tracks despite hardly any footwork? He did this in New Zealand a couple of seasons ago, in Australia, and in the just-concluded series in Sri Lanka. Is he writing a new coaching manual for batting or is he just an exceptional talent whose style other batsmen should not try to simply copy?

GB: It's a good question. He is undoubtedly an exceptional talent, and unusual. He's got great hand-eye co-ordination, a wonderful range of shots, and he's got complete conviction in his own ability. His temperament is superb. He always gives the impression to me that nothing bothers him. When I've spoken to him he just takes life as it comes, like his cricket.

I just have one slight note of caution and this is not meant to be detrimental. He hasn't yet done it in South Africa and England. India go to South Africa later in the year and tour England next year. He's got the opportunity to put that right. The true Test of a great player is to perform over quite a decent period of time and to perform in all countries besides his own. He's done it in a lot of countries so there's probably only two to go now. If we get a summer in England next year where the ball swings and seams - the Duke ball moves around - it'll be interesting to see how he does. He has exceptional talent and I don't think you can teach other players to play like him. He is a one-off.

ST: Amar from India sends us a technical query. He asks: Bowlers like Dilhara Fernando appear to be bowling no-balls consistently. Why is this a problem and is it simple to overcome? Could it be that they are not monitored closely during practice?

GB: It's a good question about them not being monitored closely during practice. When we do anything at the top level, we practice a great deal, and we do it so we can do things with muscle memory, almost without thinking. We have to be able to do it instinctively. For instance, when I'm batting I can't be thinking about where my foot goes and where my left elbow is and my arm. And he can't always be thinking about his feet. When he's running up to bowl, any bowler is sort of aware that he's going to hit the crease around about with his front foot. He's not worried about an inch or two. As long as he doesn't cross the line, he's not bothered. But I've noticed throughout my career and since that so many bowlers don't bother about a proper run-up and hitting the front line when they're bowling in the nets. A lot of England bowlers I played with - I was staggered and amazed that they could run up in the nets and they would be half a yard over the bowling crease. I don't mean half a foot, half a yard. But when out in the middle, they would mark out their run and get it right.

Anybody who has a problem, like Fernando, should be marking out his run in the nets every single time he bowls and sticking to it, so he gets muscle memory. That's the only way he can rectify the problem. It is not something you should be thinking about when you're running up to bowl. You should be thinking about where you're going to put the ball, how you're going to bowl at a particular batsman, what line, and whether you are going to cut it or swing it. You really shouldn't be concentrating too much on your feet. It should come naturally because you've practised it so often.

ST: Next up, we have a question from Stephen, a Yorkshireman from Germany. He says a growing number of international cricketers are using Twitter. With the recent controversy involving Azeem Rafiq, what do you think of cricketers using Twitter or posting blogs? Do you think the great Yorkshire cricketers of the past would have used modern technology in this way?

GB: [Laughs] Would the great Yorkshire players of the past have used them? Some of them, maybe. I don't use Twitter. I don't even know what the hell it is. To me it's an ego trip. I have my own website, which is www.geoffboycott.com. So if you want to know about me, go on there. I talk about cricket. I don't talk about rubbish.

It's just an ego trip. What else can you say about people wanting to tell the world about the trivia in their lives? They've got nothing else to do. There must be a lot of people around who have time on their hands to sit down and write stuff and read useless information. Twitter to me is not a big deal. I wouldn't have cricketers doing Twitter because you've seen what's happened to Rafiq. He's got himself in trouble.

ST: We now move on to the question that Geoffrey has picked as the best for this show. It's from Sahil in the UK. He says England's batsmen in the Pakistan series were dismissed several times in a similar fashion. Many were either playing away from the body or pushing at the moving deliveries to be caught behind or in the slips. Is it so difficult to learn the art of leaving the ball despite having all the coaches and support staff they need? And how big a worry is Kevin Pietersen's form ahead of the Ashes?

GB: That's a lot of questions in one. Kevin is a huge worry. It's not his technique. It's never been special, but it's quite good. He's got a big stride forward. It's what's going on in his head. His batting is based on confidence, self-belief and conviction in his own ability. He has poor form and a lack of confidence at the moment, so therefore he's lost half his batting. He goes to the middle not feeling great, not feeling good, not feeling he can dominate the bowlers. He's been giving interviews saying it's the lowest he's been. Since his Achilles injury last summer in England, when he had an operation and he came back to international cricket against South Africa in South Africa, he has spent so little time in the middle. When you spend time batting and make some runs, it means good form, the confidence goes up and so does the conviction in your own ability. He hasn't had any of this. It's like a circle: you start at 1, you get runs, that breeds confidence, which leads to conviction and then self-belief and then a touch of arrogance. It's like a vicious circle.

	More time in County Championship cricket has worked wonders for Jonathan Trott © Getty Images

The England players play so much international cricket that it's almost impossible to play any County Championship games in between matches. Pietersen is one of England's players who plays everything. The fixtures for four-day matches in England are so badly arranged that the England players, even when they get a space between Test matches, they can't get matches with their counties, i.e four-day cricket matches. They find that when there's a week off between Test matches, they find their counties are playing a 40-over match or a Twenty20, which is not ideal. It's not the best form of practice.

The only ones in the England team that can play County Championship fixtures are guys who are not picked for the international ODIs. It's no coincidence that the two guys who played best for England in the series against Pakistan have been Jonathan Trott and wicketkeeper Matt Prior. They've had good footwork etc. Now they didn't play in England's ODIs against Bangladesh and Australia, so there was a big period when they went back to their counties and batted well for them. Yes, they did play one or two one-dayers but they also played Championship games and got big hundreds. They could take their time and play properly out in the middle. Andrew Strauss did play for Middlesex in the early summer but didn't make any runs, didn't bat well, so he's never found any real form whatsoever.

England's batsmen and bowlers need more county cricket in between. It doesn't mean there will be a lot of county cricket, because there is so much international cricket. There are periods when England play two Tests back to back, where you can't return to your counties. But there are periods when there are nine days before the next Test. So if they organise the fixtures in that period where all the nine counties play Championship matches, then any batsman or bowler who felt he needed more practice could go back and play a proper four-day match.

Many of the England batsmen are playing poorly. It's a big worry for the Ashes. They just are playing really badly. Paul Collingwood is the one you depend on, but his footwork is poor. You've got Eoin Morgan who's nibbling outside off stump. He doesn't yet know where his off stump is. He's got a wide range of shots but in international cricket, seam bowlers are going to bowl at the off stump all the time. Now unless you can play it well and know what to leave, it's not going to matter how many shots you've got because you're not going to stay in long enough to play them.

Collingwood is getting caught on the crease, so is Strauss, playing away from his body and not moving his feet back enough. The left-arm seamers have got him out five times and have given him real problems because he is not getting behind the ball.

Alastair Cook's footwork has been atrocious. He's been caught on the crease except for one innings. He was absolutely brilliant at The Oval - great footwork, got right forward and met the ball with the full face of the bat. He didn't get caught on the crease, but he did in all his other innings. So he's not out of jail yet.

You go through them all. There is a really big problem. And that problem is not going to go away until they play more cricket. That's up to the ECB.

But they are so besotted, are the ECB, with making sure they have a four-to-six-week window to play Twenty20 cricket - about three matches a week for every county. It's difficult then to fit Championship matches in. What they should be doing when India and Sri Lanka tour next summer is find the gaps and make sure there is Championship Cricket in between first, before thinking of Twenty20 and 40-over cricket. But they don't. They're only interested in making money through one-day cricket. They think they can make a Twenty20 in England like the IPL in India and they can't. We have 60 million people in England but there are a billion people in India. So there is a bigger catchment area in all the cities to watch. It's never going to happen [in England].

ST: Thanks a lot Geoffrey. That's a wrap on today's show. Do send us your questions using our feedback form and Geoffrey will be back in a fortnight to answer them. Goodbye.