England locked in a time warp

Several off-field issues are clouding England's progress. They are not in a rebuilding stage. There is no motivation to improve when they have more than a dozen backroom staff to analyse their techniques, put out the cones at training, and virtually wipe their bottoms for them, writes Geoff Boycott in the Telegraph.

It is time that England started putting the cricket first, not the whole circus that surrounds it. One of the big problems of the last year is that everything we have heard about the national side has been to do with money and politics. Meanwhile the cricket itself has become almost incidental, which I find rather sad.

In the Times, Michael Atherton writes that England's collapse at Sabina Park has brought back bad memories of Trinidad '94.

What was Paul Collingwood doing sprinting for a couple of runs when he had been bowled neck and crop by Jerome Taylor? In that moment, there was the reminder of Mark Ramprakash’s suicidal run-out in Trinidad 15 years before, the surest sign that the situation was about to overpower a group of players who were, mentally, not up to the task.

The post-mortem continues and Mike Selvey in the Guardian calls for immediate changes to the batting order. Time's running out for Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood and it's time to give Owais Shah a chance. Perhaps sending an SOS to Michael Vaughan won't be a bad idea.

Where do England go with this? They have the best part of a week to contemplate, with the second Test starting in Antigua on Friday. Flower has his work cut out. There are denials of disunity of any consequence in the ranks but there remains an impression of the PR shots of a smiling family leaning on the gate after a politician has been caught with his pants down. Something will have to give.

In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain writes that the unneccessary off-field distractions and constant backroom changes have contributed to England's heavy defeat.

Pietersen has had to travel around the West Indies with Hugh Morris, who was instrumental in removing him as captain, while Andrew Flintoff has been like a bear with a sore head with the press because they said he knifed his captain. There have to be tensions there. The priority has to be pulling on that England shirt.

James Lawton writes in the Independent:

When you compare his [Gayle's] lot to that of Andrew Strauss, inheritor of a situation that made a mockery of team organisation and any understanding of individual duty to a wider cause, it is enough, surely, to make English cricket lovers groan with a mixture of bitterness and disbelief.

Why? Because if their West Indian counterparts are seeing the miracle of renewal, new gusts of hope, and pride, what do English supporters see? It is something no less depressing than the entrenchment of decay and its agent complacency and – why avoid the reality? – greed.

It's a homecoming for Ottis Gibson, who's back in the West Indies as part of England's coaching staff. He talks to Haydn Gill in the Nation on his transition from being an international player to a coach.

"I am happy to say that I think I've got the respect of all the guys. They listen carefully to what I have to say. They challenge me sometimes. That's what you want as a coach. You don't want your word to be gospel all the time. You want people to have their own views."