December 31 marked the closing date of a bold ECB target, set under Tim Lamb in 2001, for England to be top of the ICC Test and one-day rankings by the end of 2007. They are fifth and seventh respectively.

Under Lamb’s more cautious successor, David Collier, and his deputy, Hugh Morris, those targets were revised downwards in 2005 and again last year. Now the aim is to regain the Ashes in 2009 and to win an ICC championship.

Whoever gets the job of national selector after next week’s interviews, England should be better paced in both tables by the end of this year. If they bowl to their potential and get the right fielders in the right places, they should win the first three of the four Test series of 2008 and continue to progress in the limited-overs matches.

But they are not where they wanted to be. The 2005 Ashes triumph is increasingly looking like a mirage to England and a minor blip to Australia. It was neither. It was a fantastic, exciting Test series with a happy ending for England, but it was a damned close-run thing and it is a shame that the ECB failed to keep its collective feet on the ground.

It seemed mean at the time, no doubt, but I knew the MBEs for everyone was a gross overindulgence and chose not to report on the extravaganza in Trafalgar Square for the same reason. Had England won 15 Tests in succession, even 16, as Australia may be about to do again, it might have been a different matter.

There has been so much bad luck with injured players that England’s mid-table obscurity is deceptive. The loss, temporary or permanent, of Andrew Flintoff, Marcus Trescothick, Simon Jones and Ashley Giles could not have been foreseen in September 2005, except as a symptom of the excessive workload placed upon them by the ECB and the financial forces that drive the board’s administrators against what ought to be their better judgment.

Clearer thinking by the leading administrators is essential. They have to put the sport before the business and trust that if they prepare the ground better for consistent success by the England team, they will get sufficient crowds, sponsorship and television income even from a reduced programme. They throw money at everything to do with England, but how many times must they be urged to cut down the amount of cricket they play and to cut down the amount of domestic cricket played by the counties, no matter the cost?

Internationally, that means renegotiating plans for England to play either Test or one-day cricket in every month leading up to the start of the Ashes series in 2009. It is the 50-over ration that needs to be cut, worldwide. Domestically, it means scrapping the Pro40 League that was so disingenuously slipped in when the old Benson & Hedges competition was concluded.

There is no need, necessarily, to cut the number of first-class counties, provided that those counties can cut down their staffs and stand on their feet with less money from the centre; but they have to put in place more stringent incentives for fielding England-qualified players. Forget their age, it is their nationality that matters.

It is, at least, good news that this month the ECB will be joining forces with the Rugby Football Union and the Football Association to give evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee for the White Paper on sport. They want to be able to defend their right to look after the best interests of their sport without fear of legal repercussions. That means for cricket that at least eight members of every county team should be qualified for England.

This is the way to tackle the Kolpak ruling, not scrapping two divisions, even though it is promotion and relegation that has led to football-style desperation for instant results and the consequent quicker turnover of coaches, captains and players.

Collier, the chief executive, and Giles Clarke, his new board chairman, are going to have to go against their business instincts if they want to turn things around. They shelter behind the need to maintain television deals that they have negotiated and convince themselves that money buys success.

The reverse is truer: England success makes money. But instead of looking for breathing space, given the godsend of belated Government support to ban Zimbabwe after England’s tour to the West Indies in 2009, the foolish plan is to play two Tests against Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Why not be content with five, or possibly six, Tests against Australia, properly spaced before the ICC Twenty20 World Championship?

Recent changes of personnel have window-dressed expensively. There is a “new” managing director in Morris, plus Mike Gatting to improve communications between the England teams and all levels below them. His important task is to cut out anything that interferes with a smoother path from “school playground to Test arena”.

It is crucial to success at the top that cricket captures and nurtures its share of the most talented young sportsmen, many of whom, like the footballing Neville brothers, could make their mark at a professional level at several sports. A wealthy, successful England team, seen regularly – but not too much – on easily accessible television channels, is the key to that.

In the dressing-room, a new head coach, Peter Moores, a restored Test captain, Michael Vaughan, a new one-day captain, Paul Collingwood, a new batting coach, Andy Flower, a new bowling coach, Ottis Gibson, a new fitness director and a new fielding coach (from April) will be striving to reproduce what happened in 2004-05, but for longer. Soon there will also be a new selection committee.

I hope it is one that looks at quality and consistency rather than age. Whether ignoring Mark Ramprakash last year was a mistake remains a matter of opinion, but if there was a general failure of policy during the David Graveney era, it was in expecting too much, too soon from promising young players.

Between 1995 and 2005 the average age of the 52 players to make their Test debuts was 25 years and 165 days. The average age of the 30 new Australia caps chosen in the same period was 26 years, 219 days. Thirteen per cent of the Australians were over 30 on debut, only 3 per cent of England’s. Thirteen England players were picked under the age of 23, only three Australians.

Wishful thinking may be human, but it needs to be ignored as often as possible.

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