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Boycott lambasts Fletcher

By Ted Corbett

LONDON Aug. 11. Geoff Boycott, still a controversial cricket figure despite a recent attack of throat cancer, has launched an astonishing attack on Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, accusing him of being "the phantom coach who gets away with murder" who is spoiling England players by giving them too many rest days and who is "killing county cricket".

Boycott's blunt words were first aired on Sunday on BBC Radio Five Live but were repeated in his column in The Daily Telegraph, which is read by the majority of cricket players, officials and followers, on Monday.

It will certainly have a major effect only 72 hours before the start of the third Test against South Africa which England must win if it is to have a chance of winning the series despite an innings defeat at Lord's in the second Test.

Boycott begins by accusing Fletcher, who has been in charge of England since 1999 and whose reign has run alongside that of the former England captain Nasser Hussain, of failing to step into the limelight when events became heated.

"Whenever there's any bad publicity, Fletcher shoves the captain forward", he says. "But when the team plays well he takes a lot of the plaudits. I don't agree with that. He seems to get away with murder. He's the phantom coach who hides in the background. Everyone bows to what Duncan wants. If he doesn't like a player he does not get in the team. But I'd give the captain what he wants, not Duncan".

Boycott then turns to criticise the attitude shown by Fletcher, a successful Glamorgan coach before he joined England, towards county cricket.

"Fletcher has done more to harm county cricket than anybody I know", he says. "He has never played it, doesn't understand it or the passion we have for it. By resting top players all the time, he's killing county cricket. I feel it would be better if we had an Englishman who understand we have a professional county game to support and Test matches to win.

"You have to marry the two. You cannot disassociate them. County cricket makes Test players. Look at that James Anderson (the 21-year-old England pace bowler). He has bowled 500 first class overs in his career. When he bowls some rubbish, like at Edgbaston and Lord's when he could not put two balls in the same place, the kid does not know what to do or how to solve it. What he should have done was to bowl line and length and created a bit of pressure on the batsman in that corridor of uncertainty. Not trying to bowl them out with magic balls. But when you've bowled only 500 overs and the coach keeps resting you, how can you gain much experience."

Boycott's attack follows a similar outburst from Ray Illingworth, also a former Yorkshire star and for three years England's `supremo' — chairman of selectors and tour manager. Illingworth claimed that the England players were being "over protected" because Fletcher insisted they miss county games and that Michael Vaughan, the successor to Hussain, was "too soft" to be a Test skipper, adding "I don't believe in captaincy by committee".

Another Test defeat by South Africa, who were generally rated underdogs when the series began, will spark a search for a villain; and, since Hussain has resigned the captaincy, Fletcher stands to be held responsible.

His contract, valued at about £200,000, has another year to run but I understand that the first moves to find a replacement are already underway by the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The good news from that attack by Boycott — who will be back on television in India in the autumn to renew his duels with Sunil Gavaskar — is that he is thinking clearly again.

The great pity is that Boycott, like so many England captains of the recent past, have to confine their wisdom to the columns of newspapers or the television screen and are allowed to play no major part in putting right the many wrongs that exist in English cricket.

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