England's search for a new coach - a futile hunt?

There simply aren't that many people out there with the necessary qualifications, as is plain from the job description taking up large amounts of space on the board's website. A prime motivation for bringing in outsiders to draw up the initial shortlist is, of course, to avoid the accusation - levelled when Peter Moores was appointed - that the appointment might in any way be not thorough, or an "inside job".

But I can think of only one scenario in which this becomes an embarrassment, and that is if Andy Flower, who is effectively filling in as coach during the West Indies tour, gets the full-time gig. Were that to happen, with the involvement of an outside agency, Flower would immediately start work in a weakened state, undermined by the charge that he had been chosen on a nod and a wink by people he already knows at the board.

Test cricket's great selling point is supposed to be that it tests participants to the limit, yet in reality any Tom, Dick or Harry can score a Test match century these days. Pitches are routinely like motorways and refuse to break up over five days, genuinely fast bowlers are few and far between, because their shins and spines have been fractured by the demands of bowling on concrete surfaces, and most outfields are smoother than a supermodel's Brazilian.