England Lose

Watching (or listening to) England attempt to play cricket is a painful process. The only thing that you can be sure of is that the players will consistently underachieve. And, strange though it may seem, losing to South Africa today was possibly a good thing. It means that the selectors really will have to look at the team. And with rather better analysis than this match where they dropped the one person with form, Stuart Broad. Had we won then we would have heard all the platitudes and heads would have been buried in the sand.

Some people have to go. And the selectors have to see passed the fact that certain players throw in the odd century when their career is on the blocks. We would be better with a team who can repeatedly get 70-80 runs each, than a team where individuals get a century every once in a while to keep their place.

So out should go Vaughan (what use a captain when he can't score), Collingwood (sorry, the second innings was great but it doesn't nullify the rest of the season), Flintoff and Strauss. I possibly think even KP should go. KP is great, he is an exciting player, and if he is surrounded by a reliable team then he is a potential match winner. But the problem with exciting is that those players also get out playing the great shots, and without any depth to the team we can't take the risk.

There have to be other players out there. It must be so frustrating for David Sales and the like to be watching this slow motion train crash and yet be repeatedly overlooked by the selectors.

Time for the long knives.