Cricket: Injuries Rob Strauss of Rest

Australia rested Ricky Ponting last week and tomorrow, against England, Adam Gilchrist will take a break. For Duncan Fletcher, coach to an England team with their batting resources stretched to the limit, there are no such luxuries.

Fletcher has long hankered after giving Andrew Strauss a few days off to snap him out of an undistinguished Ashes tour, but with Kevin Pietersen and Michael Vaughan injured, and Marcus Trescothick absent due to a stress-related illness, he feels Strauss, as the only senior batsman left standing, must carry on regardless.

Fletcher allowed himself a moment of gallows humour at the thought that England might offer Strauss a rest cure. "We are petrified of giving guys rests, aren't we?" he laughed. "We try to give them rests but with the players missing at the moment we haven't got a batter here to replace Strauss. If we did have, we would probably look at giving him a rest."

But such a gamble would not be impossible. England could rest Strauss against Australia tomorrow, move Ed Joyce to opener and give Ravi Bopara a one-day debut at No4, in the hope that it would clear Strauss's mind in time to face New Zealand in Perth next Tuesday, a match that logic suggests will have more bearing on England's prospects of reaching the International Triangular Series final.

England tried to address Strauss's loss of purpose at the start of the one-day series, with Fletcher and Vaughan instructing him to forget thoughts of getting the innings away to a flyer, but to seek to bat for long periods, and allow others to bat more aggressively around him. Four games into the one-day series, he is no nearer a solution.

"We just feel that Strauss has to play his natural game," Fletcher said. "He knows his role - we had one-on-ones with every player in Sydney before we started this series - and it is to play like he does in Test cricket and let the side bat around him."

Strauss's inability to pierce the offside field has contributed to a woeful one-day series, but it was two hazardous pull shots against New Zealand's fast bowler, Shane Bond, neither of which made contact, in Tuesday's day-nighter that most revealed his confused state of mind. He made 19 from 33 balls before he was lbw to James Franklin and England subsided to a 90-run defeat.

Fletcher regards those pull shots as evidence of Strauss's "desperation". He said: "Desperation comes in where you try to do shots you are not really capable of playing. Your judgment becomes a bit clouded. There is pressure on Strauss."

He added: "Strauss is struggling, Paul Collingwood is struggling a bit. When you bring in new players, if your experienced players are struggling as well, it compounds the problem."

Fletcher's ability to revive Strauss's career is just one of a host of factors that will influence whether England will retain him as coach, or decide after the Ashes whitewash that he has now passed his sell-by date. He repeated that he will make his own judgment after the World Cup. "We'll just have to look at it, see if I've got the confidence of the players," he said. "If they've got the belief in you as a coach, that they know you can help them, that's the most important thing.

"Once I feel that 'hold on, I can't add value to the side or those players' then I will have a look at the situation and feel as though I am under pressure."

Buchanan blast

John Buchanan has criticised Australia's current one-day series opponents England and New Zealand for failing to provide the World Cup holders with a sufficiently testing challenge ahead of their title defence in March. "All our bowlers have been able to control each game for most of the matches," said Australia's coach, who exempted innings by England's Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, and New Zealand's Ross Taylor and Craig McMillan. "Our ability to deliver yorkers, length balls, bouncers [and] variety balls has not been placed under constant scrutiny by an opposition batting line-up."