PANIC STATIONS AS ENGLAND ARE STUCK IN MUDDLE
THE wrong time to start panicking, said Joe Root. Really? It seems absolutely the right time to start panicking to many of us. Indeed, some might already be regretting not panicking sooner. England, fresh from getting their backsides handed to them in a high hat by a second-string New Zealand, now embark on a run of five Test matches against India, followed by an Ashes series in Australia. The batsmen appear to have forgotten how to bat while the team structure is hopelessly muddled as a result of the ECB’s rest and rotate policy, and the prioritisation of the white-ball game. If Zak Crawley, or others, wanted to try to play his way back into Test form via domestic cricket, good luck with that. There are just two rounds of County Championship matches between now and the first Test against India at Trent Bridge, and those will be completed on July 14 — three weeks prior to the international date. Still, at least that affords plenty of time to revisit and erase teenage social media indiscretions lest England’s patsies wish to be further entrapped in chief executive Tom Harrison’s moral maze, which promises zero tolerance for all bar executive types like Delia Bushell who was removed from the Jockey Club for sharing ‘offensive material’ but retains an advisory role at the ECB for her ‘wise counsel’. What counts as wisdom at the helm of English cricket, however, is very much a matter for conjecture. Panic now, and avoid the rush.