Tuesday, November 20, 2001 The decision to send for Andrew Flintoff so early in the tour is an odd one, but a good one (see news story). In fact, it was suggested here on October 25. It had been clear from the moment the squad was picked that England had boxed themselves in, leaving no possibility of playing five bowlers and a proper No.6 batsman. They hadn't thought through the consequences of losing Alec Stewart.

Craig White is a dashing No. 7, as he showed again at Mumbai on Monday, but he is a top-six batsman only in Lilliput. He props forward to the seamers and is all too apt to nick regulation deliveries to second slip. Flintoff is inclined to do that too, but at least second slip gets sore palms for his pains. And both of them know how to attack the spinners. They have never played a Test together. At six and seven, they could make an entertaining double act, half Greig and Knott, half Laurel and Hardy.

Their bowling is more of a worry. Flintoff will bring this team some economy, which is much needed judging by the way the seamers were spanked around the Wankhede on Sunday. But he is a 10-overs-a-day man, not 25, and in first-class cricket, even when fit, he has seldom been much more than a partnership-breaker. The talk of giving him the new ball smacks of desperation.

White, meanwhile, has apparently told Duncan Fletcher that he feels he can no longer bowl at 90mph. Nor can most people, but White's bowling is the kind that don't mean a thing if it ain't got that speed. At full tilt, he can beat the best batsmen for pace and late swing, as Brian Lara discovered, first ball, at The Oval last year. At half cock, he just comes nicely on to the bat, as the Australians showed when he played three Ashes Tests this summer and took 1 for 189.

Flintoff has been brought to India as much by concerns about the other bowlers. Fletcher seems to have noticed, at last, that they are hopelessly inexperienced. Whether five of them will do any better than four is arguable. It will mean dropping a batsman, either Michael Vaughan, Mark Butcher or Mark Ramprakash, all of whom have made a hundred in their last Test or two. It will be sacrificing a strength to patch up a weakness. Which is just what England have always done when making Stewart keep wicket. Fletcher has done great things for the England set-up, but bringing rigour to the selection process may be beyond even him.

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