Leaderless ship won't make waves
In The Observer , former England offspinner Vic Marks takes a look at the one-day squad … Harmison out, Panesar in - and all captained by..
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
In The Observer, former England offspinner Vic Marks takes a look at the one-day squad … Harmison out, Panesar in - and all captained by... well, we don't know yet … and he comes to the conclusion that England's one-day preparations are as shambolic as ever.
Everywhere we see the signs of a creaking vessel, shipping water, not knowing where it is going. Although Steve Harmison knows where he is going soon: back to England. The announcement of his retirement from one-day cricket - three months before the World Cup - confirms our misgivings about the pace bowler. For him cricket seems to be a job rather than a passion and he has decided to go part-time.
It was view shared by Michael Atherton in The Sunday Telegraph, who said that it was lucky the team was announced on the same day Shane Warne retired:
It was a splendid day to bury bad news. By announcing such an undistinguished one-day squad on the day the greatest cricketer of the modern game retired, the selectors clearly hoped it would slip under the radar. By and large it did.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa