Just to warn all you non believers.

I'm a bit hacked off with the current situation with the England cricket team. Why has nobody looked at the main reason for me why we have gone back ten years as a test team within the space of a year; Peter Moores. This guy got the job without an interview.

He might have every coaching badge available and know every fielding and coaching drill in the manual but is he a leader of men? Has he got the respect of international class cricketers, something he was a long way away from ever being? He's a cricketing equivalent of Steve Mclaren!

This is a bloke who distances himself from the Pattinson selection yet surely culpable for the other main bone of selection contention, the wicket keeper. He had both Matt Prior and Tim Ambrose at Sussex, Ambrose left for Warickshire because he couldn't get a game. Surely he has a massive influence in selection.

The way the likes of Hoggard and Harmison have been treated is nothing short of shite in my opinion, Hoggard had one bad test match in New Zealand. He's been a consistent performer for years and he was allowed ONE bad game. Well it was actually two he bowled superbly in a test I was at, at Kandy in Sri Lanka taking six wickets on the first day but picked up a back injury and missed the game at Colombo, he played half fit at Galle then didn't start well in New Zealand which led to him being discarded. How are team mates going to react to that? A popular member of the dressing room and a proven (time and time again) international class performer being dumped after one game when the team as a whole played woefully. Harmison as well has got pelters from all comers and hasn't been defended or backed by the current set up. You need to know how to get the best out of people. His attutide he been questioned but I watched him bowl his bollocks off on the flatest most docile wicket I've ever seen in Colombo in heat and humidity that made going to the bar for a 40p pint of Lion beer even an effort and be the best bowler two games before he was dumped.

The biggest crying shame is that Micheal Vaughan has now become the fall guy for this alarming slump, the best modern captain in my opinion England have ever had. He has the respect of every player in that dressing room, Moores doesn't yet Vaughan is the man who goes. To think of the stick one of best things to ever happen for England cricket team Duncan Fletcher got as well.

Moores Out!

Is that the game a bit like rounders but with an oblong bat? The one where they stand around for three days wearing big jumpers?

Couldn't play today, it's raining

Bunch of girls!

Mind you, it's another example of a selection commitee picking the man most unsuitable for the job, they must take advice from the FA

pj, you are one of the few shining beacons of light in this sea of rotting floating turds of a messageboard

concise, informed, eloquent. i had to check it wasn't one of my posts !!

if only a few more people could look at pools without getting hysterical.....

I agree that it was a shame for Vaughan, but his essential problem was that he simply wasn't looking the part with the bat and the current side simply isn't good enough to carry a player, no matter how good a captain he may be.

Moores hasn't covered himself in glory, and some selections have been bemusing at best, but then the same could be said of Fletcher who for example dropped Read after his best ever test innings and Panesar when he looked England's most dangerous spinner for years simply because he wanted to bring back the same side that had won the Ashes regardless of form or fitness.

Hoggard was a stupid one to drop, everyone knows he's been a reliable bowler for many years and it left us with a relatively inexperienced attack. Harmison however had failed too often, and when he had an off day he frequently went for plenty in addition - his place had been under threat for a long time. Now he's starting to look like he's got his Mojo back he's been called up again which is fair enough.

The problem is we had a period where several players all hit form together, and now that that's changed (and some players have been lost to injury etc) we've kept faith with them regardless. All of the top order are capable of scoring runs, but we seem to only maybe get one at a time doing so - other than when Pieterson and Bell did so in the first test of the series. Particularly in the first innings, the batsmen have simply failed to cope and apply themselves in the way that the likes of Smith, De Villiers, Prince etc have. The Saffers haven't even really needed Kallis to score runs... Meanwhile the typical England innings seems to have been Cook batting well until he gets a good one, Strauss going early and being followed by Vaughan, and then as soon as KP and/or Cook goes hoping that an often failing Colly and Bell and the tail can help them to a half-decent score. (Don't even get me started on the keeper position, it's becoming a slowly revolving door of players not delivering on initial promise...)

Add in the fact that we've been trying to bowl sides out with an attack consisting of good (rather than great) bowlers in Anderson and Sidey, a bowler who seems to be primarily in for his batting (Broad), and Panesar who seems to be losing his way a bit, and now the prodigal Freddie Flintoff, and we're simply not up to the task. Moores has to take some of that blame, but I actually think as well partly it's the Central Contract system. Some of the players hardly play for their counties these days, so if they lose a bit of form there's nowhere for them to try and pick it up again. It's also now damaging the Captaincy options, as none of them play enough to be considered for county captaincy jobs so there's no experience.

Anyone for a root and branch review?

suggestions for selection panel

boycott, hussain, atherton, bumble

all with pedigree, all honest, not an establishment 'yes' man amongst them.

Bob Willis Chairman of selectors

shoot me now