Moores' backroom problems
"Winning the first three Tests of a five-match series in India [as England did in 1976-77] remains a unique achievement, incidentally, and here's the thing: it came with the aid of what these days might be called a skeleton support staff, which
Forward this now to the height of the last Ashes series, when a rough headcount suggested that the ECB staff were just as numerous as the players. Is it too cheap a shot to mention that they lost the series 5-0? OK, it is ... I'm not so much knocking the rising numbers of support staff as pointing out that increasing coaching numbers is not necessarily a panacea. Indeed the sheer weight of numbers who surround the team could cause some conflict and ill-feeling over the next couple of months. I'm talking here of course about Sir Allen Stanford's Antiguan shoot-out (of which you may have heard).
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo