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Cricket
By Ted Corbett
It is not just David Graveney, the chairman and his committee association Geoff Miller who will try to thrash out the concerns over the age of Alec Stewart, 40, who has already decided that he will not put himself forward for selection for the overseas tours next autumn. They have called in consultants from all branches of the game, including the head of the Academy, the Australian Rod Marsh. Nasser Hussain, retained as captain of the Test team for the series against Zimbabwe and South Africa but who has stepped down as leader of the one-day side and Duncan Fletcher, the coach, made their views known at a meeting of the selectors earlier this week. Today's get-together will be more about long-term strategy than the immediate naming of candidates and it may include the wisdom of Brian Bolus, who was chairman of the Management Group responsible for England until he resigned at the end of his second term of office last December. Bolus is clearly seen as a consultant by the England and Wales Cricket Board's new chairman David Morgan who has no first class cricket experience but who is more willing to ask questions of the right people than his predecessor Lord MacLaurin. Bolus, 69, will be asked to bring his thoughts - after eight Tests, the captaincy of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire following his dismissal by Yorkshire and two years as a selector - to the wicket-keeping dilemma. He is likely to say that there must be a look towards the future which leave the gloves to one of three candidates. Chris Read, a Nottinghamshire keeper, is said to be the favourite, but Mark Wallace of Glamorgan is gaining ground and James Foster, who has been on the last three tours abroad, has the support of Hussain, his Essex team mate. All three are under 25. Marsh, whose acrobatic wicket-keeping helped Dennis Lille achieve his huge haul of 355 Test wickets, favours Read; Fletcher has argued forcibly in favour of Foster. There is even talk of a rift between the pair on this subject alone which does not augur well for an easy debate over the captaincy. Michael Vaughan, the No.1 batsman in the world last year, Marcus Trescothick, the powerful left-hander who has not handled the vice-captaincy with any sort of aplomb, and the charismatic but under-talented Adam Hollioake are the rivals. Fletcher has let it be known that he does not favour Hollioake who has pushed Surrey to three championship victories in four years since he took charge when Stewart stepped down. He may be right for even at one-day level Hollioake has been found wanting as an all-rounder but some feel he could fulfil a useful function as a stop-gap ahead of Vaughan's natural promotion. Vaughan would be an interesting choice. He has suddenly begun to flourish as a batsman, he has a steely manner which may translate into captaincy easily, and his background of captaincy at school, with the England Under-19s and with England A is impressive. "Michael grows into jobs with any apparent effort,'' says his old schoolmaster and he is likely to be named in about two weeks. The English county season opened today; pessimists predicted a disaster of a season with money troubles, further setbacks for England and a fall in both gates and membership. The optimists stayed quiet. I learned yesterday that, just to take one wretched example, the average age of members at Lancashire was 57, hardly an encouraging sign for the future. But there are no young people in cricket and as the re-evaluation of Bolus has shown, the future may be in the hands of those already receiving their old age pension. Six years ago Lord MacLaurin turned down advice that would have put Ray Illingworth in a similar capacity as an unseen consultant. If he had listened my feeling is that some of the more amateurish mistakes of the last four years could have been avoided. Luckily Bolus has Illingworth's ear and in this old Yorkshire partnership a new beginning may be formed.
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