THE England selectors would do well not to join the customary overreaction when the team have just lost a match. Meeting tonight to discuss the squad for next week’s fifth npower Test against South Africa and to begin debating touring parties and candidates for the National Academy, they will certainly need no reminding that England beat a poor Zimbabwe side easily in the first series of the summer, lie fourth behind Australia, South Africa and New Zealand in the ICC Test ratings and won their two one-day series, first against Pakistan, then against Zimbabwe and South Africa.

England may even win the final Test at the Oval, starting a week today. Because of the weakness of the bowling, however, that would be very surprising. They missed at Headingley the best chances of claiming a parity with South Africa that they do not deserve. If they could call upon an attack of Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard, Simon Jones and Stephen Harmison it might be different, but only Harmison of these is available. In any case, Caddick (234 Test wickets at 29) is less of a threat on true surfaces and the other three still have much to prove.

Harmison had a good game at Headingley largely because he did not play in it. Having been left out on form rather than because of the calf pain he had felt at Trent Bridge, he has bowled at full 90mph-plus pace in two one-day games for Durham and now needs to bowl with some fire in his belly for England. By the same token, Richard Johnson, having played two games for Somerset without injury and bowled well for England on the few occasions when he has been fit, will return to the Test team to win a second cap, knowing that another breakdown might cost him a tour place.

England will need two other fast bowlers in the squad, but unless Michael Vaughan is prepared to make better use of his own useful off spin there would be a case also for two specialist spinners. Although Gary Keedy is starting to contest his claim to be the best left-arm spinner in the land, Ashley Giles will surely return; he was England’s best bowler at the Oval last year and will be needed in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This leaves a choice for a partner between the experienced Robert Croft, whose record for England overseas is, like Giles’s, far better than at home, and Gareth Batty, the coming off-spinning all-rounder.

Batty, the better fielder, would be my choice, but there would be great irony were he to win a first cap at the Oval, where he could not establish a regular place for Surrey because his way was barred by Saqlain Mushtaq. Just in case the weather should hold, he will be included, no doubt, in the party — as he was, initially, at Trent Bridge — but I suspect that Vaughan’s inclination will be to count himself as a second spinner (he bowled 12 overs and took one for 36 against India at the Oval last season) rather than go into the game with only three fast bowlers. Outside the sub-continent, contemporary captains feel denuded without four.

If James Kirtley has recovered from sore shins, he will share the new ball with Harmison or Johnson, since Martin Bicknell’s hamstring strain has now been diagnosed as a slight tear. His return was one of the curiosities of England selection that will be talked about in years to come. If only they had picked him in his prime.

If two spinners were to play, Andrew Flintoff would have to be hard-worked as third seam bowler. He enjoys that, however, and now would be the time, in Alec Stewart’s final Test, to promote him to No 6, the batting place that he will have to occupy in future.

It is possible, of course, that Stewart will be denied his swansong, but, in a game that England need to win, the case for him remains strong, despite a modest, perhaps a mentally distracted, series. Jonathan Batty’s timely third century of the season for Surrey, meanwhile, has only confused the question of who will go with Chris Read on tour.

The time is also right, I believe, for Graham Thorpe’s recall. Despite turning only one of eight first-class fifties into a hundred (an old failing returned), he has been in fine form all season and could take over at second slip from Mark Butcher, allowing the latter to compose songs in his mind in the outfield. It is now official that Nasser Hussain’s broken big toe will not allow him to play, so there is still a decision to be made about Ed Smith.

I hope that Andrew Strauss will make a tour party and know there is a case for Paul Collingwood to win the first Test cap that was earmarked for him until he dislocated a shoulder, but, having picked Smith to play against a strong attack on poor pitches, justice demands that he be given a chance on a decent one. Smith was seen by some as a flag-bearer for county cricket. True or not, Vaughan, for whom next week’s match has become an early test of his ability to lead England for a long time, may be regretting his half-baked criticism of the county game after Headingley.

John Elliott, the Worcestershire chairman, offered a counterblast yesterday to Vaughan’s claim that England let South Africa off the hook at Headingley because county cricket produces mentally soft players. “We have done everything for them,” Elliott said. “We have given them central contracts, brought in two divisions, made one-day cricket 45 overs, etc. They have got all the help in the world with physios, psychoanalysts, dieticians and managers. I think they should look internally.”

If you put your head above the parapet . . .