Moores flies the flag
Kennington (again) – One minute you can be happily watching a county match – although admittedly one between two title contenders – meandering along, shuffled back and forth by some fickle spring weather. The next you can be plunged into the cricket news story of the day.
Sussex coach Peter Moores announced during a rather lengthy lunch break that he will be taking on the job of England Academy director after Rod Marsh steps down in September, charged with continuing the good work old iron gloves has done in establishing a system to make promising athletes into Test-standard cricketers.
Moores would have been a surprise name for the post had his stock not risen rapidly in the last four years. He retired in 1998 after a 15-year career as a county wicket-keeper to become Sussex coach, but it was his leadership of the England A tour of the Caribbean in 2001 that really made his name, with several players - including James Foster, who made the Test side the following year - trumpeting his ability. A Championship title with perennial bridesmaids Sussex in 2003 was followed by a request from the West Indies Cricket Board that he apply for their vacant coaching job. He was just beaten out by Bennett King.
That Moores is a thoroughly nice bloke to deal will probably has little bearing on his candidacy - Marsh once dealt with a colleague of mine's telephone query by simply saying, "I don't want to talk to you" – but it makes his appointment all the more popular.
It is also a great signal for English cricket that an Englishman is qualified to take this job, a position now widely viewed as the heir to Duncan Fletcher's throne. With Fletcher and Marsh in place, and Worcestershire's Tom Moody tipped as next in line, the English coaching cupboard looked bare. Moores believes the standard of coaching is one of the healthiest things about the county game – although seven of the 18 counties have foreign bosses – but it takes a standard-bearer like this to prove it.
Will Moores succeed Fletcher? Give the bloke a chance to spend some time at Loughborough first! The news he is writing an autobiography prompted speculation Fletcher would step down in September after the Ashes, which would surely be too soon for Moores. But my understanding is that Fletcher book, although his ghost Steve James will deliver it in the autumn, will be kept on ice until the big man decides to quit, which may not be until after the 2007 World Cup. One minute you can be happily watching a county match, the next you can be plunged into the England hot seat.
Quote of the week
"My philosophy is to get excellence out of people rather than putting it in."
Peter Moores explaining why his lack of international playing experience is unimportant.
Spotted
The two leg-spinners of the 1992 English Test summer going head to head, and Mushtaq Ahmed stepping down the wicket to hoist Ian Salisbury over mid on for four.
Stat of the week
0 – Number of minutes' play available because of rain and snow at Lord's as the county season began on April 8th.
Six sense
1.The season opener between MCC, or England A, and the previous year's champions is a great idea – it should be a high-profile match, giving a higher profile to some of the aspiring stars of the English game. But is was disbanded as a season-opener in the mid-1990s for a reason. Whatever the calibre of match, if you play it in the first week of April it will be underwhelming. Have an all-star break just before the Test series. Pit them against the tourists. It would be a cracker.
2.With three months still to go before the Ashes start there's a tendency to get over-excited about the injury stories that proliferate at the start of the season – Andrew Flintoff not yet fit after knee surgery, Marcus Trescothick suffering migraines, Kevin Pietersen nursing a stress fracture to his left metasomethingorother. But you ignore them at your peril because too often, particularly where England and especially where Flintoff is concerned, they gain massive significance at just the wrong time.
3.Matt Prior gave a brief glimpse of what he could offer England as a wicket-keeper batsmen, with a luck-filled 59 off 80 balls and some neat boundaries through the covers. He plays more in the V than Geraint Jones, and he could be a better keeper but he has the sense to realise England won't be making any dramatic change unless they are forced to.
4.Did you notice New Zealand's Lou Vincent made 224 in a Test match the other day? It is not just the influence of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe that makes the current ICC tour programme less-than-perfect but also the squeezing-in of series between less fashionable countries, usually played over the minimum two Tests and three ODIs before the participants jet off somewhere else. Roll on the extension from a five-year cycle to six years. Maybe every series will be given due value then.
5.Makhaya Ntini's 13-wicket haul in the second Test could prove an argument either way in South Africa's quota debate. When he became his country's first black player, back in 1997 he was too raw for Test cricket and could easily have been passed over had the quotas not kept him in the side and given him the necessary experience. But without the quota he may not have been brought in as early, learned his trade better at domestic level and been better polished when he arrived. Either way, he has to rank alongside Donald and Pollock now.
6.Performances for the home side in that Test said everything about the debate that raged around the opening of the series. Of the returning players, Brian Lara chipped in 196, Chris Gayle took a four-fer, running through the tail in the first innings and Ramnaresh Sarwan made a second innings ton. But the performance in the field was vastly worse and the body language of the couldn't-care-less variety. There's no "I" in team. Maybe Peter Moores would have sorted them out.
