It was actually Alec Stewart and David Lloyd who publicly branded Caddick as difficult and a trouble maker (sentiments shared by Atherton and Illy) hence his exclusion from the 98/99 Ashes despite taking over 100 championship wickets in the season. Hussain who had a similar rep early in his career demanded his immediate recall as soon as he took over the captaincy and Caddick then proceeded to produce his best stuff in an England shirt under Fletcher before injury took him out of the frame for a year after the 2003/3 Ashes (where his performances were frankly insulting) in which time the attack moved on and he was kept out of the side on merit.

And I also really fail to see what more Fletcher could have done to aid Harmison's international career. To start with he was the one who was willing to overlook the modest FC stats to get him into the test match arena as soon as possible and then he backed him to the hilt after a slow start (including a fairly traumatic Ashes) to his international career. And then when the golden 18 month period was over and his form dipped to an at times unacceptable level he still publicly backed him and stubbornly refused to drop him. ****** he even made Flintoff captain in the theory/vain hope that he would get the best out of his mate.

In terms of Ramps and Crawley (along with Hick and Tuffnell) the damage had long since been done to both players by the time Fletcher took over. He gave both decent opportunity's to prove themselves but Ramps was (and still is) mentally shot from a decade of mistreatment and Crawley technical deficiency's were too great an obstacle to overcome. The only mistake Fletcher made with Ramps was the ill faited opener experiment in 2000 but to be fair to him he was not alone in having that theory as there had been a massive clamour for him to open in the media for a couple of years.

And I also disagree completely on your view that the likes of Collingwood and Hussain are lesser talents. Test cricket is primarily a mental game and their abilities in this area puts them in a different league to the Ramprakash's of this world who didn't possess the temperament of an international cricketer. All very well having all the shots in the book if you don't have the mental toughness to get them out under pressure.

(When I look at the state of this England fielding side and the length of the tail I seriously hope that Peter Moores starts to develop Fletcher's obsession with "multi dimensional" players)