Fletcher reluctant to make changes

Duncan Fletcher, England's coach, has called for calm after England's embarrassing drubbings in the last two NatWest Series matches. Despite a couple of woeful batting displays in which England have been bowled out for 147 and 101, Fletcher has urged the selectors not to make any changes to the team.

"I'd like to see the side stay the same." Fletcher said. "We've been through this with the Test side and it's because they've stayed together and know their roles that they are functioning so well."

Even though there have been calls for specialist players to play in the side, rather than allrounders like Ian Blackwell and Anthony McGrath, who Bob Willis yesterday described as "average county players", Fletcher is adamant he is taking England on the right path. "We have to find allrounders," he stressed. "People talk about bits and pieces players, but all these allrounders in Australia and South Africa started out as bits and pieces players and they are now quality allrounders and that's what often happens."

He continued, "You very rarely find a genuine allrounder straightaway. I'm sure at one stage Andrew Flintoff could have been looked at as a bits-and-pieces player and now he's a quality allrounder - as you get experience that's what happens."

Since the 2003 World Cup, eight players have made their one-day debuts. Rikki Clarke, Anthony McGrath, Jim Troughton, Richard Johnson, Rob Key, Kabir Ali, Andrew Strauss, and Geraint Jones have all been given a go, and Fletcher now wants to introduce some stability. "The reason for the low scores is that the side hasn't stayed the same," he said. "All the time we've had new guys coming in and they've not settled in the roles they are made to play."

Regarding England's performances so far, Fletcher couldn't hide from the poor batting, and stressed the importance of getting a good start. "Even if you've got an experienced middle order, it's always important in one-day cricket that you have a good platform," added Fletcher. "The openers or the top three have got to go out there and give us a good start."

England's next match is tomorrow in a day-night match at Headingley against West Indies, who are still riding high from their seven-wicket win against England at Trent Bridge, and can effectively put England out of their own tournament if they win tomorrow.

"I am quite happy with the start, but if you look at the table New Zealand are ahead so we need to win tomorrow to make sure we go back to the top," Brian Lara, West Indies' captain, said. "This game is still in the early stages of the tournament and we will be looking at it as a must-win situation for us and leave it at that."

He added: "Even then if England were to win their remaining matches after tomorrow there would be a slim chance they could still get in. But that is not our worry, our worry is that we win early up so we make sure we are in the final and give ourselves time to prepare during the remaining matches."

England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Michael Vaughan (capt), 3 Geraint Jones (wk), 4 Andrew Strauss, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Anthony McGrath, 7 Ian Blackwell, 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Darren Gough, 10 Stephen Harmison, 11 James Anderson.

West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 3 Devon Smith, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 5 Brian Lara (capt), 6 Ricardo Powell, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Ridley Jacobs (wk), 9 Ian Bradshaw, 10 Ravi Rampaul, 11 Jermaine Lawson.