England in need of specialist advice

Duncan Fletcher's list of achievements since taking over as England's coach at the end of the 1999 season is considerable, but, having watched the inept way his side attempted to chase Sri Lanka's modest total of 229 on Sunday, he will now have a rough idea of what it is like to paint the Forth Bridge.

On winning their recent Test series against Sri Lanka 2-0, Nasser Hussain, the England captain, was full of praise for his coach, stressing the value of his input into the successful way England's batsmen negated the threat of the No 1 spin bowler in the world, Muttiah Muralitharan.

Having worked out a method for Test cricket, he now needs to devise a plan, along with his batsmen, for one-day cricket. Hopefully then we will not see a repeat performance of the confusion and panic we witnessed two days ago at Old Trafford. There England's "finishers" – batsmen whose specialise in winning games – failed miserably in the face of four capable, but far from daunting, spinners on a pitch offering help, but not excessive turn to the slower bowlers.

The England player who made the most of these conditions was Michael Vaughan with his occasional off-spin. The Yorkshire batsman finished with career-best one-day figures of 4 for 22 and while Vaughan works hard at, and is keen to improve, his bowling, not least because it will increase his chances of playing ahead of Nick Knight or Graham Thorpe in England's full-strength one-day side, it is an area of his game that needs some specialist help if he wishes to provide the consistency he and his captain would like.

Vaughan alluded to this after the defeat. "Orthodox spinners around the world tend to go round the park a bit," he said. "It's the mystery bowlers like Muralitharan and Saqlain Mushtaq who are the main threats in one-day cricket, and I am not in that category at all.

"It would be nice to learn how to bowl the mystery ball, but we don't have anyone in this country who bowls it."

Listening to this one cannot help but think that, in an age where attention to detail is paramount, and England are in desperate need of a spin bowler who can spin the ball both ways, there should be someone who can coach this, working with the likes of Vaughan, Jeremy Snape and Ashley Giles if they are to make the most of their potential.

No coach has the time to work with every player on every part of their game, or has the knowledge to specialise in every technical area, but there does seem a reluctance in cricket to fully involve expert coaches.

Other sports do. Rugby Union's Clive Woodward employs specialist kicking, scrummaging, forward and back coaches, and football's Sven Goran Eriksson seemed to have more coaches than National Express during the World Cup. Sport is all about having a five-per-cent edge over your opponents and Hussain and Fletcher will be more aware than anyone that England need this advantage more often than not.

After a weekend watching his two passions outside cricket – tennis and Formula 1 racing – and dinner with Michael Schumacher, Sachin Tendulkar learned the sad news of the death of his grandmother Indumati Tendulkar in Bombay at the age of 92.

Ticket-holders for today's NatWest Series game at The Oval between England and India, however, will be delighted to know that the little master will not be returning home and will play in the match. The only possible change to the Indian side from the one that beat Sri Lanka on Saturday is Vangipurappu Laxman replacing Dinesh Mongia.

ENGLAND (v India, NatWest Series, The Oval, today) From: M E Trescothick, N V Knight, N Hussain (capt), M P Vaughan, A J Stewart, A Flintoff, P D Collingwood, R C Irani, J N Snape, A F Giles, A J Tudor, D Gough.

INDIA (probable): S C Ganguly, V Sehwag, V V S Laxman, S R Tendulkar, R Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, M Kaif, A Agarkar, A Kumble, A Nehra, Zaheer Khan.