Stamping out the rot

Michael Atherton dissects his revealing, and worrying, interview with Steve Harmison - which he conducted during the Sydney Test - in today’s Sunday Telegraph and concludes that something is rotten in the England team.

This England team is not bereft of talent, but there is a fug of complacency that needs to be stamped out. All the talk at the end of the series from the captain and players was that this is a young England team, the vast majority of whom will still be in place the next time the Ashes are up for grabs. If I was in an England team that had just been wiped out 5-0, I don't think I'd be taking my place for granted.

In the same paper he urges England’s bowlers to learn how to bat.

Meanwhile Andrew Strauss insists that he, and England, “will be better for the experience” in his tour diary. He adds that the defeat “will give us more than enough motivation to take our game to another level”.

Scyld Berry laments the ECB’s so-called “special review” and calls for a complete reform. But he also highlights Simon Jones, the injured and forgotten fast bowler who was so instrumental to England’s success in 2005

Since then England have been unable to re-create that constant pressure on opposing batsmen, thanks primarily to the injuries to Jones. He, indisputably, was the difference between England winning the first Test in Multan and losing it by 22 runs; and England have gone downhill since. They have continued to use the new ball effectively, but from overs 40 to 80, when the second new ball is due, England have failed to pressurise, except when Monty Panesar has found turn or bounce.

Jones was more than a master of reverse-swing, he was also the one intimidator in a pace attack of otherwise gentle souls. But there is no point lamenting Jones's absence because injuries are a given norm in the international schedule that the ECB commit England to playing, well in excess of the amount dictated by the International Cricket Council. The point is that nothing was done, or could have been done, to make good his absence.