HAVING failed on Wednesday night at Windsor Park to create coherence from the most talented group of players for a generation, it seems that Sven-Göran Eriksson cannot even address England’s footballers of tomorrow. The England head coach was scheduled to be the first big interview on Sportsround, a new BBC production from the Newsround stable, on the inaugural programme tomorrow morning.

The 15-minute show, aimed at 7 to 16-year-olds, is designed to bridge the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s output with its sports programming. After England’s embarrassing 1-0 defeat by Northern Ireland, the producers of the show thought they had a big story on their hands; the first opportunity for Eriksson to explain to supporters what went wrong during what should have been a routine World Cup qualifier. They had even agreed to shift the pre-recorded interview from today to yesterday to accommodate Eriksson’s desire to attend the second day of the final Ashes Test.

But, as Eriksson faced nationwide calls for his dismissal, Sportsround yesterday received a call from the Football Association to say that the head coach would be pulling out and would fulfil his obligation another time. Yesterday he was apparently barricaded in his home by the baying press pack.

Apart from disappointing young fans, Eriksson should be further abashed by the news that his eleventh-hour replacement was none other than David Healy, who scored the goal that sank England’s rudderless ship.

• SURREY County Cricket Club are reviewing the viewing arrangements around the press box at the Oval for the fifth Test match after international cricket writers were forced to watch the live action from the TV. New glass sightscreens, demanded by the England management and suggested as a solution by the MCC, at the Vauxhall End in the state-of-the-art OCS Stand offered members of the world’s press a view of their own reflections. The glass in the dazzling £25 million stand is to be tilted inwards for future Tests.
  
  
• STEPHEN FRY could be heard at the Oval yesterday waxing lyrical about the prowess of Shane Warne, the Australia leg spinner, whom the actor says has a hex on all batsmen for his sheer presence.

  Fry, whose autobiography, Moab is my Washpot, contained infamous reminiscences of encounters in the cricket dressing-rooms at public school, is a big cricket fan and even put the game centre stage in The Liar, his novel about international espionage. For a man who professes his two big loves to be sport and Neighbours, Fry could not have wanted to be anywhere else but an Ashes Test yesterday.

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