The Hindu : Sport : England squad unchanged

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 22, 2006

Sport

Sport

England squad unchanged

Ted Corbett

LONDON: David Graveney, chairman of the selectors, has pleaded for three England players to be given time to recover from their injuries in view of the heavy international programme ahead. At the same time he admitted that he has stopped ringing the England captain Michael Vaughan to ask for a progress report on his knee injury - because Vaughan must be tired of answering the same question repeatedly. It can only mean that Vaughan will play for England again for some time.

There have been reports of fears within the England camp that Vaughan will never play again after three knee operations in the last five years and talk of a setback when he increased his training schedule ten days ago. Graveney compared those reports to the stories about England's World Cup hopeful Wayne Rooney who is trying to get fit after an ankle injury.

Heavy commitment

"Two days ago I read Rooney was going to be fit; today I see another story which suggests he will not be fit. I think that we have to give Vaughan, Ashley Giles and Steve Harmison time in view of the heavy commitment in the coming 12 months. Naturally, Vaughan is frustrated because he is not involved with the Test team at the moment; it is hard to take for anyone. But the bigger picture has to be considered and it is better that they are all given time to recover."

With that idea in mind, the selectors have left Harmison out of the unchanged squad for the Trent Bridge Test against Sri Lanka which begins on Thursday. "We watched his progress against Nottinghamshire this week but rain meant that he did not get much bowling and we will see how he progresses," Graveney commented. "Clearly England is a better team when he is playing but we must allow nature to take its course."

Debate continues

Ever since England failed to win the first Test after being in a dominant position by the end of the second day, there has been a continuous debate on the nine dropped catches which halted its progress.

Among the reasons that have been put forward are the left-handed batting stance of the coach Duncan Fletcher; a training method that involved dropping the ball and trying to catch the rebound and Flintoff having to split his concentration between the captaincy and catching.

"You cannot win matches at any level if you drop nine catches," said Graveney. "I think it was just one of those things. We made mistakes but it would be wrong to turn it into a big issue."

It is clear that the brain's trust that leads the team thinking have missed a point. Sri Lankans are not - as they are frequently described in reports here - little men in a team being rebuilt.

As they showed in their second innings the side has considerable fighting spirit and no doubt they will have taken heart from their big escape and may have further surprises for England in the second Test.

Their batsmen have scored freely in both the Test and warm-up games even though the cool spring weather can hardly have been in their favour.

A self-confident outfit

It is also a self-confident outfit. When Sanath Jayasuriya was sprung on the party by the new chairman of selectors, the tour selectors responded by leaving him out of the match against Sussex which makes it unlikely that he will play in the second Test. But then that is the surprise they may confront England with on Thursday morning.

The squad: Andrew Flintoff (capt.), Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Geraint Jones, Liam Plunkett, Sajid Mahmood, Matthew Hoggard, Monty Panesar, Jon Lewis.

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