Fletcher calls for greater focus on one-day cricket

Duncan Fletcher has blamed a lack of preparation and planning for England's disappointing showing in the one-day arena this winter.

Fletcher is adamant that the team have not given themselves the best chance of success by planning the one-day games around the Tests, rather than making them a focal point in their own right.

England have been reluctant to use their one-day 'specialists,' flown out just prior to the series, due to a lack of match practise. This factor, allied to an understandable weariness on the part of some members of the Test squad and the difficulty in changing approach from Test to one-day cricket, has resulted in England going 0-2 down in the current series.

"If you look at the tours and the way they were balanced it was asking a lot of these players to come out here," explained Fletcher. "Look at the itinerary before Christmas: if we hadn't gone to the ICC tournament in Nairobi first, we'd have gone to Pakistan and played only one warm-up match before playing three one-day internationals."

Fletcher suggested that England should play more one-day cricket, and pointed out that they currently play fewer games than any of the major international teams.

"Most other sides play five or more matches and are probably together for a lot longer than we have been this winter. I'm trying to address that with going to India and New Zealand next year for the one-dayers,"

In contrast to the great success of the Test team this winter, the one-day unit has endured a torrid time. An early defeat in Kenya was followed by narrowly losing an exciting series in Pakistan, before the disappointments of Sri Lanka.

No doubt the exertions of a busy winter have taken their toll on the team leaving them somewhat jaded, but Fletcher also stressed the difficulty in altering the focus of the team from Test to one-day cricket in a short period of time.

"I'd like to make the one-day section of the winter one separate tour so we're with the players for a certain length of time," explained Fletcher. "You can't change cricketers over the space of a couple of days before losing them back to the county scene again."

Fletcher is keen to plan for the next World Cup in South Africa in 2003, and believes that an increase in the number of games is a crucial requirement. He is also aware of the importance of increasing the proportion of young players in the team, as some of the current squad may well have retired by 2003.

"We're thinking about the World Cup already," he said. "It is an on-going exercise and we're going to have to play a few more one-day matches just to stop us falling further behind.

"The more you play the game, the better you get at it. We played our last one-day internationals against Pakistan in November about the same time Sri Lanka played South Africa, but since then they have played a further 12 matches and we've not played any.

"It's two years down the line and we're going to have to look at the individuals concerned and decide if they can make it through to the next World Cup. There needs to be a blend between youth and experience because it's no use throwing a lot of younger guys in because they learn from copying others when they are out in the middle when the pressure is on," Fletcher accepted.

"They will look at how the experienced players do it if they have anything about them. It's no use just sending 11 young players in with no-one to act as role models for them."

Meanwhile England are expected to make several changes to their line-up for the final game in what has become a dead rubber tomorrow, including several of their one-day specialists.