Whither England?

England haven't won a Test Match at Lord's for two years. That they haven't lost one either would go some way to explaining why bowlers are not exactly queueing up to have a bowl, despite the fact that the opening Test match of the season, in early May, is habitually held there. The last three Lord's Test matches have followed a familiar pattern; England bat first, make 550 odd, to which the opposition reply with a total in excess of 400. England make a relatively good fist of setting a target, before wasting that good work with a tardy declaration.

In the end it was rain which had the final say, perhaps fitting in a match which neither team really deserved to win. The bowling on both sides was fairly dismal; the West Indies seamers at least seemed to know which pitch they were bowling on, while the England pace duo of Plunkett and Harmison were experimenting with the rather novel idea that, if the pitch offered isn't doing anything, why not try out the adjacent one to see if that seams around. On both sides.

All of a sudden, England, who had in recent years become accustomed to a surfeit of high quality fast bowlers, have been left in a real mess. Hoggard and Flintoff, ever steadfast and reliable are both laid low with injury, while the other key cog Harmison appears to have simultaneously lost confidence and ability. It's a chicken and egg thing; we know he has the ability, but as a mood influenced bowler, he somehow needs to regain confidence. 150 overs of bowling in county cricket and 24 wickets in three games for Durham clearly haven't done the trick, and without the cushion of an experienced attack to carry him, England can't go on for ever just waiting for him to "click". Harmison's attitude that he has nothing to prove also seems curious; if you break down his Test career into ten match tranches , there is only one period where he averages under 30. Everybody who cares about English cricket desperately wants Harmsion to succeed, not least himself. Yet there has to come a point where the management decide that enough is enough and they cannot accommodate a man who seems to have about as much idea of where the ball will land as does the batsman facing.

Worryingly this is not a problem limited to Harmison. Almost all of the up and coming English seamers are afflicted with a curious inability to land six balls of an over on one half of the pitch, let alone a layed out newspaper, and a Sunday at that. To that end, the selectors took the drastic but necessary step of recalling accurate left-armer Ryan Sidebottom, six years after his Test debut. He would not be first choice in the eyes of many, but, with Hoggard out and Flintoff doubtful, even the England selectors recognised that the thought of going into a Test match at Headingley with three from Harmison, Plunkett, Anderson and Onions was too awful a thought to bear. Not that they cannot bowl; they all are, or have the potential to be, fine bowlers. But to have all your pace bowlers in a four man attack playing pic'n'mix on a pitch which will require accurate bowling was just not a viable option. The chances of Sidebottom playing very much depend on the fitness of Flintoff; if he plays, then the shaggy-haired one can expect to do what Jon Lewis spent almost all of last summer doing and drive back to his county the day before the Test begins. If Flintoff is unfit, then he is very much in the frame; as a Yorkshireman, albeit one repatriated to Nottinghamshire, he knows Headingley well and what is required of him. As a left-armer he also offers variety (and not the sort Harmison and Plunkett produced at Lord's) and an angle of attack which the West Indies batsmen have struggled with of late.

The fitness of Flintoff has consequences which extend beyond the composition of the bowling attack. Michael Vaughan will return to captain, and at least fitting him in will not prove too difficult, with the luckless Owais Shah jettisoned. However the role of Flintoff is very much in doubt. He has bowled just nine overs for Lancashire in whites this season, and this, along with the fact that his ankle probably precludes him from being part of just a four man attack, mean that he is unlikely to be fitted in as a replacement for Plunkett on Friday, if he can prove his fitness. Even if the England medics, who have got far too much wrong in the last two years, pronounce him fit, and Moores wants to deploy him in his customary No.6 position, there is the problem of who should make way. Cook and Pietersen are realistically the only two who are absolutely safe; still, how could one countenance dropping Collingwood, who has done so much over the last year or Bell, who continued where he left off last summer with another century? In the cold light of day, the man to go would have to be Strauss, the only established man out of form. It would be easier for all concerned if Flintoff, fit or not, was sent back to Lancashire, to prove his fitness under less strenuous circumstances and get some much needed time in the middle, with both bat and ball. Ideally the same would be in order for Vaughan, which would also give Shah another crack of the whip. However, ever since the 2005 Ashes, he seems to have taken on a deified status, and he must surely be the cricket captain who has reigned for longest in his own absence. With the comments coming out this week about how he felt underused during the Ashes whitewash and the increasing sense that he seriously undermined Andrew Flintoff's captaincy, it seems that Vaughan has dined out so often on the Ashes success that he has started to believe in his own hype. Good captain that he is, he always had a potent seam attack at his command, and it will be interesting, assuming knee, hamstring and finger permit him to lead on Friday, to see how he fares with the motley crew of bowlers he will have at his disposal on his home ground.

After England missed their chance to put one over on a West Indies side who were effectively playing their first match of the tour at Lord's, imposing their will on them will be a much tougher ask now they have some cricket behind them. If the batting holds (and unless England's bowlers pull their socks up, one has to assume it will), then they could spring a surprise at Leeds, a pitch which will be suited to their seam attack, which will be given a cutting edge by the conditions, assuming that they can maintain the tidy line they pursued at Lord's. Tidy is not the word which could be ascribed to any English seamer, once Matthew Hoggard limped off on Saturday morning. At times they would have disgraced a club side, let alone county, and it will ultimately come down to them to decide whether English cricket can emerge into a new era under Moores, or whether fans will be forced to don their 1990s tin helmets and retreat back under the duvet again.