No logic in England recall for Andrew Flintoff

May 4 2008 By Jack Bannister

Already the arguments are starting about the chances of Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison featuring in the first England squad to be announced next Sunday, for the first Test match at Lord's against a woefully inexperienced New Zealand team.

Harmison has no chance, and yesterday's warning that he will quit cricket altogether if he is not picked this summer effectively spells the end of an all too brief period as a top-ranking fast bowler.

Still only 29 and with too few miles on his bowling clock, he is a casualty of former coach Duncan Fletcher's misplaced insistence on smothering the amiable Durham man in cotton wool. The argument about Flintoff is different but recent quotes from Michael Vaughan about considering him for the first Test are plain barmy.

He appears to have made a full recovery from a fourth operation on his left ankle - the most important joint of a right-arm fast bowler because of the enormous strain put on it by the transference of seven times bodyweight in the delivery stride. And the Flintoff weight is not too similar to that of Frankie Dettori. Vaughan's twisted logic starts with Flintoff's lack of runs in the last three weeks. Therefore, according to the gospel of St Michael, England cannot afford to bat him at six but only at seven.

Let the reader try follow the sort of defensive thinking that usually blights selection, even against a weak batting side as New Zealand.

The obvious solution is to play wicketkeeper Tim Ambrose at six, thus allowing Flintoff to bat at seven as one of five bowlers. The trouble begins with the reluctance of the selectors to tell either Paul Collingwood or Ian Bell, "sorry, but we are leaving you out in the best interest of balancing the side."

Both batsmen would consider themselves hard done by, although Collingwood has not topped 70 since his century against the West Indies last year at Chester-le-Street. Vaughan says he is now a convert to a four-man attack but surely not with Flintoff until he has banged away on that ankle for another couple of months.

The captain was some distance up the proverbial creek in New Zealand when Harmison was a member of the four-man crew in the first Test, and James Anderson in the second. His leaking boat was saved by Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad but surely the almost impossible task he faced in trying to share 90 overs a day among three main bowlers should dissuade him from giving Flintoff an immediate Test recall.

The Lancashire lad went bust at Lord's against Sri Lanka, and his future is as a number six and one of five bowlers, or as one of four after he has pounded out two or three hundred first class overs for Lancashire. Even then, the strain of bowling in four-day championship cricket cannot be compared with a five-day Test, in which a side can often be in the field for the best part of two days on surfaces prepared to last longer.

The batting order looks automatic although Vaughan's decision to bat at three has a dangerous-looking knock-on effect, and not just for his poor return of 97 runs in five first class innings this season. It is right for him to drop to three because any opener will tell you that he starts to get his mind into gear in the field when seven or eight wickets are down. Vaughan still has the cares of captaincy to fill his mind, and should not open.

But the pairing now will be two left-handers of similar grafting style, and opposing bowlers have now learned that Strauss can be bottled up with full and straight bowling denying him room to cut and pull.

As for Cook, he is still vulnerable around off stump and still plays around his front leg and not alongside it.

Kevin Pietersen can only be left to his own usually productive devices, although sometimes Bell and Collingwood have to consolidate instead of cracking on.

Bell knows his conversion rate of fifties into hundreds is becoming a millstone but looks too good a batsman not to rectify what is a mental failing, not a technical one.

Ambrose won't be fed short and wide bowling, particularly later in the summer against South Africa, but which bowlers will he keep to next week? Vaughan says that young Broad is among the most intelligent bowlers he has handled and Sidebottom and Monty Panesar will invariably provide control.

Anderson does not deseve a place because of a wildly erratic career inevitable with such a poor head position in the delivery stride.

It is a huge waste of a lovely hand and wrist action, as evidenced by a return from his last five Tests of 17 wickets at 48 apiece, with a nightmare economy rate of 4.2 runs per over.

No county or international coach has been able to help him – is that a reflection on them or him? Matthew Hoggard was desperately unlucky to be dropped with Harmison after the first Test in New Zealand and would complete the best available four-man attack next week.

This is the team I would select – with no Mark Ramprakash and, please, no Flintoff.

M Vaughan (capt.), A Cook, A Strauss, K Pietersen, I Bell, P Collingwood, T Ambrose (wkt.), S Broad, R Sidebottom, M Hoggard, M Panesar.