Carberry clanger highlights England muddle

It should never be a surprise when Michael Carberry drops a catch. For all his worth as a batsman and for all his fitness, he has never been a reliable catcher.

His drop of Thisara Perera when the batsman had scored 20 at The Oval defined this game and the muddled thinking that currently pervades in the selection of the England team.

It was a simple chance. It was simple like the chance Carberry missed at backward point in the second Ashes Test in Adelaide when Brad Haddin had 5 and went on to score 118; an innings that hammered a nail into England's Ashes coffin. This time Thisara helped Sri Lanka thrash 37 runs off the final 15 balls of the innings of which his share was 28 in 10. It changed the game.

It cannot be put down to 'one of those things.' It happens too often for that. While not exactly the norm - Carberry has taken some good catches in his career - it is not accurate to describe it as an aberration. He dropped chances on his ODI debut in Dublin and was untidy in the ODI series against Australia that followed. He has a reputation at county level for being far from a safe pair of hands.

Equally, England cannot be surprised that Ian Bell looked rusty as a T20 player: he had not played a T20 match of any sort since England last selected him in this format in January 2011. His class as a batsman is beyond doubt and he surely can develop in this role but to expect him to do it against the world champions is asking a great deal. And England only have three T20s in the rest of the year. If they really see Bell as part of their next World T20 squad, they will have to release him from other England duties to play some T20 cricket for Warwickshire.

Nor can they be surprised that Jos Buttler, for all the potential he oozes as a batsman, continues to make mistakes with the gloves. He was not first choice wicketkeeper at his county last season and, only a few weeks ago, was rested from the first game of the county season by the England management when offered a new opportunity to take the gloves full time with Lancashire. Here he missed a tough stumping chance offered by Kithuruwan Vithanage on 30 off Ravi Bopara.

And they cannot be surprised that Chris Jordan is struggling as a death bowler. He has never successfully mastered the art at county level and Sussex, his county, signed Yasir Arafat as an overseas player for their T20 campaign so that he would not be exposed in that role. Yet here was Jordan, bowling the penultimate over of the Sri Lanka innings and conceding 22 runs.

Even Alex Hales, who became the joint quickest man to 1,000 T20 international runs and top-scored in the match, might progress faster if county and country could agree on his role. Hales, who like Kevin Pietersen reached the landmark in 32 innings, has the ability to prosper in all formats of the game but, after a poor first-class season in 2013, is currently unable to command a place in the Nottinghamshire Championship side.

While that is understandable, if the county game is largely about preparing players for England, then Hales should surely be playing in front of a 35-year-old former Australia international, Phil Jaques, with a view to him learning the skills that could, in time, help England win World Cup and Ashes series. And the fact that it is an England selector, the Notts director of cricket, Mick Newell, who leaves him out just underlines the muddled thinking that continues to hold England back. The England selectors seem intent on asking their players to perform roles which they do not perform for their counties.

But it is the selection of Carberry that is most perplexing. While his T20 record is decent - though not as good as James Taylor's, who is almost a decade younger - it seems odd to select a 33-year-old at the start of the two-year cycle between World T20 tournaments.

The main reason for bewilderment at the selection of Carberry is not his age or the concern over his fielding. It is the rampant hypocrisy it represents. For while Pietersen was dropped from the team in 2012 for exchanging private correspondence with members of the opposition, Carberry has been recalled having publically lambasted the coach (at the time) of the limited-overs squads in a national newspaper.

And while Pietersen was told he would not be selected again because the England team needed "the full support of all players" with "everyone pulling in the same direction", Carberry was recalled despite criticising Ashley Giles in an interview in which he suggested he had been omitted from the England team for non-cricket reasons and giving a highly disputed version of events on the Ashes tour; so disputed that the ECB is understood to be deliberating whether to take further action over the piece.

And while Paul Downton watched two-and-a-half days of the Ashes and concluded that he Pietersen was "disconnected" from the rest of the team - a version of events that has been disputed by the vast majority of the rest of the Ashes squad - he had apparently not watched enough of the series, or of county cricket in the previous decade, to realise that Carberry's catching was an accident waiting to happen.

Yet it seems there is one rule for Pietersen and another for every other player. And it seems for all the strong words about "support" and "pulling in the same direction" some are allowed to be more opinionated than others.

The shame of this defeat was that England actually showed some admirable characteristics in this game. Harry Gurney, on T20 debut, demonstrated good composure and skill that might see him develop into the death bowler this side so urgently require, while Chris Woakes showed the extra pace and improved skills that could still see him develop into a quality allrounder in all formats. The batting of Buttler, Ravi Bopara and Hales was also impressive.

But if you drop simple catches against the world champions, they are going to punish you.