James Lawton: Cricket would benefit from leadership in the Woodward mould

The England cricket coach, Duncan Fletcher, whose job it is to whip the team into internationally competitive shape, and Rod Marsh, the former Australian wicketkeeper, who is charged with identifying the young players he believes have the right stuff to prosper at the top level of the game, remain in angry dispute over the former's decision to ditch the gloveman Chris Read for the superior batsmanship of Geraint Jones.

The England cricket coach, Duncan Fletcher, whose job it is to whip the team into internationally competitive shape, and Rod Marsh, the former Australian wicketkeeper, who is charged with identifying the young players he believes have the right stuff to prosper at the top level of the game, remain in angry dispute over the former's decision to ditch the gloveman Chris Read for the superior batsmanship of Geraint Jones.

A sheepish chairman of selectors, David Graveney, says: "We do need to tidy up the communications process so that we are committing something to paper which we can all work from."

Sorry, David, we need to do rather more than that. For a start, the proposed piece of paper should enjoy the same fate as the one Neville Chamberlain brought back from Munich.

What English cricket needs, of course, is leadership and that can only come from an individual strong enough to take the responsibility and the heat for his own convictions; somebody like Sir Alf Ramsey or Sir Clive Woodward.

It is no coincidence that these are the only two Englishmen to lead the nation to World Cup triumphs in front-line sports. They picked their teams and said they would stand or fall by their own judgement.

It is a principle that shines more brightly than ever on cricket's latest sad little story of in-built confusion.