Cricket: Dexter bewilders as beatings mount for bewitched tourists

SO MUCH for Lord Ted getting himself into a lather over a shave, and the theory that there was nothing wrong with England's cricket team that the eradication of designer stubble would not cure. The final humiliation was presided over by the baby-cheeked Alec Stewart, and do not be too surprised if the facial hair epidemic does not now manifest itself in the players attempting to sneak through Heathrow on Sunday wearing false beards and dark glasses.

It is not quite the equivalent of losing to the USA at football, as a tired and dispirited team was always vulnerable against a Sri Lankan side still on a high after beating New Zealand, but after losing five Test matches in a row, the graph on the patient's bedstead continues to burrow its way towards the earth's core.

Why Sri Lanka came at the end of the trip, rather than as a warm-up against less testing opposition than India, is just one of many decisions for which there is an absence of logical explanation, and it would be interesting to see the result of the MCC dissidents' no-confidence motion in the selectors were it to be taken today.

Dexter has now presided over three gruesome wipeouts since taking office in 1989, and if he answered to public opinion as opposed to the county chairmen, he would now be ordering razor blades (of the cut- throat variety) for himself. However decent a job he may be doing behind the scenes, and there is evidence to suggest that he is, he scarcely conveys the image of a man with his finger on the pulse.

For a PR consultant he comes across as a dotty professor: 'No errors', 'who can forget Malcolm Devon', 'Calcutta smog', 'Gower's too old. . .'. Before last winter's A tour to the Caribbean, Dexter shook hands with a tracksuited figure at Lilleshall and invited him to 'get lots of runs'. The fact that he did not get a single run, however, had something to do with him being the team's physiotherapist.

Dexter has now been reported as saying that Gower would have been better off playing cricket this winter rather than sitting behind a microphone, which would have been easier to accomplish had England picked him in the first place.

Why has Dexter, who was so reminiscent of Gower in his own playing days, thrown in his lot so thoroughly with the idea of sweat before style? At least when Gower was presiding over disaster, the ship went down with a bit of panache and the band playing.

Graham Gooch will presumably carry on as captain, but one thing that India should have taught him is that cricket is not simply about travelling, practising and playing, and that this team were ultimately worn down by the monotony of this blinkered concept. Gooch's name is on the hole-in-one board at the Tollygunge Club in Calcutta, but not once on this tour did he or any other player find the time to relax with a game of golf. Somewhere between captain Gower of the Skylark, and captain Gooch of the Roman galley, lies the right medium.

However, there have been plusses from this tour - notably Chris Lewis and Graeme Hick - and neither should the restorative powers of a pint of ale and a steak and kidney pie be underestimated when it comes to giving Australia, in surroundings and conditions much more to England's liking, a decent contest this summer.

On top of which, those of us whose last memory of Lord Ted was of him coughing his way out of Calcutta, are reassuringly reminded that the Australians have yet to contend with the Manchester smog.