I’d bring in Nasser to coach Test team

SOME suggestions for improving the performance of our Test team:

Let Trevor Bayliss concentrate solely on coaching England’s white-ball teams. Appoint a former Test cricketer as coach to instil an ‘over my dead body’ attitude in our Test team. Nasser Hussain would be an ideal candidate.

Replace Mark Ramprakash with a batting coach who understood Don Bradman’s advice “if you aim to hit the ball along the ground you’ll be less likely to be caught”, thereby stopping those loose,‘catching practice’ shots our players like to indulge in.

Bring in as a bowling consultant any local village darts champion who could explain why, if you want to hit the bull’s-eye, you need to practise doing just that till you perfect it – a skill which should be bread and butter for any professional bowler.

On the first day of the Trent Bridge Test, in a statistic shown in the Channel 5 highlights, 95 per cent of the balls bowled by our seamers would have missed the stumps.Vernon Philander is a good role model for exemplifying the age-old mantra:“If you miss (the ball), I hit (the stumps or your pads).”

All simple stuff, of the kind I used to tell the U13 B-team I coached. STEWART FRANCIS West Mersea, Essex