Dear Sirs,

Steve Harmison just doesn’t seem interested. He’s in the prime years of his career and he’s struggling with technical details regarding his action! He doesn’t seem to be the bowler he once was and I think you just bring in Mahmood and let him have 15 tests. Let him find some rhythm and some form. I’ll be willing to bet that he’ll do AT LEAST as well as Harmison. I’m afraid that the Aussies have seemingly got one over on him and I don’t think they’ll let up now. So let him go back to where he wants and let someone else come in. Giles should be surplus once we return, so thanks Ashley, but goodbye. Bring Monty in for the summer and beyond.

Beyond that, we’ve got a decent team (honest). It should then be a case that Jones is told he must bring his average up to around 30 (in tests - no keeper should be considered for test selection until they average above 35 in county cricket otherwise they’ll be as good a useless in the test side) to keep his place. Same for Read and Foster et al.

For the summer i’d go for:

Strauss
Cook
Bell
Pietersen
Vaughan*
Collingwood
Flintoff
Wicketkeeper (averaging 30)
Mahmood
Hoggard
Panesar

Hoggard and Panesar to be our Glenn and Warne double act - i.e. bowl lots of tight overs. Mahmood used in short spells of 5 overs every 20 overs until he’s got a decent strike rate (you can protect him in short spells from getting too disheartened - hey, it’s what we’re already doing with Harmy). Freddie or Mahmood and Hoggy take the new ball. Hoggy and Monty to bowl lion’s share of overs but if ball reversing/not swinging, let Fred partner Monty.

Collingwood told to improve bowling, KP likewise, just in case they are required. If Mahmood didn’t make it, we’d know by end of next year and gives us long enough to have a look at Broad and others before the Aussies return in 2009 should we need to do so. One further point - any bowler not taking a wicket over 3 or 4 innings (for whatever reason including not being bowled) should expect to possibly be dropped for lack of form.

I think the important thing here is that team might not win quite as many matches this way but at least we would get bigger batting totals meaning the bowlers play more naturally. That and the fact that I always think that the five bowler attack is rarely required - look at Aus last match, they only played 3.5 bowlers (as McGrath was nowhere near fitness) and they didn’t do too badly. When we’ve got the world’s best all-rounder we shouldn’t need to pick another bowler to partner him but we have the freedom to pick another batsman as required. And if the argument is that Fred is in there as a batting all-rounder, what is he doing taking the new ball?

Oh, and I think Fletchers tenure may be up. I would personally like to see Darren Lehman get the coaching job.

Kind Regards,

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