Cricket: Third Test: Young guns respond to being in the firing line

IT IS a cause for great rejoicing that England almost beat Australia and especially because they managed it largely as a result of the efforts of the young players whom the selectors deliberately turned their back on for so long.

One cannot help but remember some of the selectoral utterances over the last few months. After the Indian tour, the England manager, Keith Fletcher, said he was delighted at the way in which the batsmen had learned so quickly to cope with spin. Shane Warne was also delighted.

After the first Test match of this series, when Graham Gooch was appointed for all six Tests, he said, with numbing predictability, that it was important to keep faith with the batsmen already in possession. Graham Thorpe and Nasser Hussain have hardly endorsed this thought.

Then, when the England squad for the second Test was announced and there was still not a left-handed batsman in sight, Ted Dexter, the chairman, said that there was nothing a left-hander could do that a right-hander could not also do. He also spoke about the dangers for left-handers having continually to play Warne with the ball pitching in the bowler's rough outside off- stump. Thorpe has given the lie to that theory.

On the last morning of this fascinating series, I was haunted by the television pictures of Gooch and Fletcher sitting side by side in the dressing-room staring silently at the play. They both looked distinctly lugubrious and it was as if their charges were still heading for defeat rather than giving an outside chance of a remarkable victory.

Of course, there is nothing more stupid in cricket than to lose a match you have already made safe. But surely Gooch could have declared 20 minutes before he did, if not at the overnight score. This might not have made any difference, but it certainly would have increased the pressure on Australia.

Later on, should not the captain have tried to see to it that England bowled more than the minimum number of overs before the last hour began? Talented and enthusiastic youth surely deserves more vibrant and challenging captaincy.