Waugh really has no need to play James Bond

David ("We murdered 'em") Lloyd is one of the wittiest and most engaging of men in and around the cricket scene even if, from time to time, he is unable to prevent his emotions running away with him. It was in Zimbabwe five years ago as England's coach that he delivered his most famous line when England finished a Test match in Bulawayo with the scores level and wickets in hand.

He has now attributed Steve Waugh's arrival to finish the season with Kent as part of a cloak and dagger operation by the Australian high command to have a surreptitious look at the budding English talent, especially in the fast bowling department.

Being the hard-shelled realist that he is, one doubts if Australia's Test captain will have allowed his sleep to have been disturbed by the distant news of England's defeat of Sri Lanka and their victory over India at Lord's. He certainly will not have felt the urge to put on his bicycle clips and rush over James Bond-style to England.

When the telephone rang offering him a nice little earner, reputedly of around £15,000, to help out Kent when Andrew Symonds left the county to lend a hand to Australia's one-day cause, Waugh's interest will have been aroused. He will have regarded it as a nice bit of cash for a useful extended net to tune him up for the forthcoming Ashes series.

If anyone is to be blamed for allowing him a sneak preview of the present England players, it would surely have to be those who pull the levers of Kent cricket for it was they who eagerly summoned Waugh to help their cause. But with so many Australian players littered around the county scene, there were plenty in a position to dish the dirt when they returned home, starting with his twin brother, Mark, who is about to roll up sleeves on behalf of Essex.

As it has happened, Steve must be having the chortle of a lifetime after seeing, hearing and reading about England's spectacular incompetence in the present Test match at Headingley. There has been nothing that will remotely concern him and send Australia's powers-that-be scurrying back to the drawing board in the fear that their hold on the Ashes is under serious threat.

Of course, Simon Jones and Steve Harmison are not in the front line at the moment: Jones because of injury and Harmison because of a selectorial whim after his impressive showing in the Trent Bridge Test when he recovered well from his ineffective start on the first day. As he is in our midst, Waugh would, no doubt, like to have a look at these two to see what the fuss is about, but this was far from being the main reason he caught the aeroplane to England.

Lloyd has apparently made contact with Waugh to explain himself and that conversation will not have been without its humourous side. Not a muscle in Waugh's impassive, poker face will have moved and, at most, he will have allowed himself a pithy and pertinent comment or two while Lloyd buzzed fretfully around him. After England's performance at Headingley, he could hardly be blamed if he did not resist the urge to pick up the telephone and dial Lloyd's number to deliver a few more.

There is no one who relishes a fight more than Waugh, as long as it does not involve losing the Ashes to England. He is the only survivor of the last Australian side to do this, against Mike Gatting's team in 1986/87, and it is not an experience he would like to repeat. None the less, he will have great sympathy for Graham Thorpe in his present predicament for he is the one English player the Australians rate as a world-class performer.

Of course, England will badly need Thorpe in Australia, but the selectors are not being as sympathetic as they might be. While they are apparently prepared to give Darren Gough and Craig White until 1 October to prove their fitness, they have said that they will need to know one way or the other about Thorpe's willingness to undertake the tour before the selectors meet later this week.

While it is Thorpe's mind rather than any of his limbs which is in distress, it is surely in the best interests of all concerned to give him as long as possible to come to the right decision. There must be a much greater chance of him sorting out his mind and his family problems if he, like the two Yorkshiremen, was given five weeks rather two or three days in which to do it.

They must realise that Thorpe, in the right frame of mind, is crucially important to England in Australia and they should be falling over backwards to give him every opportunity to make himself available. At present it looks like double standards with one rule for the two Yorkshiremen and another for Thorpe who, in the selectors' minds, must at least be the batting equivalent of Gough.