England aim to lessen the burden (31 Mar 1998)

31 March 1998

England aim to lessen the burden

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

THE growing differences between England's Test and one-day sides may be defined even further in Australia next winter when the two teams are likely to be managed by different people.

Bob Bennett, a reluctant manager in the first place and a weary man after three months in what for those closely involved with a cricket tour of the Caribbean is at times only a very superficial paradise, will probably hand over to David Graveney when the one-day phase begins next January.

The good news is that there will again be two distinct phases. Player power in Australia has for many seasons called for a division between the annual triangular contest of one-day internationals and the Test matches. England have preferred that route for tours of Australia ever since the Packer Revolution in the late 1970s made an icon out of the day/night match.

Only once, however, have they had their way and for all the spadework of England officials - Bennett, in his role as chairman of the England committee, the chairman of selectors, Graveney, and the relatively newly installed tours director, Simon Pack - they would still be beating their head against a gum tree had Australian administrators not come to the same conclusion.

Happily they have, their minds concentrated by the need to prepare their one-day squad for the World Cup in England in May and June. Next year's tour itinerary is nearing agreement, with Pack and his chief executive, Tim Lamb, in charge of England's attempt to secure a rational programme.

The aim is to give England the best chance of successful campaigns in the Test series for the Ashes and the triangular World Series matches with Australia and Sri Lanka. Agreement has been reached in principle for the five Tests to be played between late November and mid-January.

There are now likely to be three first-class games at the start of the tour and three Tests before Christmas, two of them 'back-to-back' at the expense of another first-class game during the Test series.

It looks like being another frustrating tour for anyone who does not make the Test team after priorities have been sorted out in the early matches. There is a strong case, therefore, for taking only 15 players for the first-class programme and bringing in fresh ones for the one-dayers.

The change of playing personnel has worked well this time, judging by England's exhausting but entertaining 16-run win in the first of the five internationals against the West Indies at Kensington Oval here on Sunday.

Golf at Sandy Lane for some, rest for others was the order of the day yesterday and only those who feel in need of a net will have one today. That is fine, so long as there is no corresponding resting on laurels after a victory based on Nick Knight's handsome 122 off 130 balls.

If an unbalanced West Indian side had made more rational use of Brian Lara's brilliant 110 in response, England's 293 would not have been enough.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)