I seem to have noticed this of late, and after seeing a photograph recently I feel the need to ask this question.

Do our current guys really have the mental capacity for this sort of thing.

Look at their hands. Particularly their finger nails. Flintoff, Harmison and Giles all bite their nails to the quick.
That may sound stupid, but however you look at it, those are not the actions of supremely confident people.

These guys are neurotics. They are going to need a good deal of cosying and cossetting to produce top class performances.

Gnaw away a little ('scuse the pun) at their psychie, with a little problem here and a little problem there... an injured skipper, the loss of an inspirational bowler, a dodgy ankle, the damaged mental state of an opening bat... and you got a bunch of jibbering wrecks who've as much idea of how to grind out results over five days as... well... Bangladesh?!!!

Shove into that mix the possible inclusion of a couple of interlopers (not one-of-the-lads) Read and Panesar, and throw the captaincy to the mercurial mainstay of the team, just back from injury and already through another set of nails, and what could possibly happen.

On that point, which in my enforced Christmas absence I imagine everyone is deriding as ridiculous nonsense, I happened to notice that Monty Panesar is a non-nail biter, a couple of newspapers last week were carrying pictures of his hands. I don't know why.

So on the field apparently Panesar does not look a confident individual... that is, one supposes the reason Fletcher/Flintoff/whoever wouldn't pick him. But in his own mind, everything in the garden is rosey, everything is going well, and he confidently predicts (silently and for himself) that a long and steady future in the England Test side is at his elegant and be-nailed finger tips.

I wonder which one of England's non-nail biting captaincy candidates will be shoe-horned into the job, one supposes, at the first available opportunity.

I happen to agree that Flintoff has not done a thoroughly bad job on the field in this series, but there are question marks for me. And given that Strauss had done a perfectly good job in the summer series against (admittedley) a Pakistani side lacking a proper bowling spearhead (until the ODIs) I still think he should have kept the "armband."

I do think there is something in this. I haven't just gone off on one for the hell of it. And I suppose that thirty or so years ago Harmison, Flintoff and Giles would just have been extremely heavy smokers.

But neuroses strike in different ways. That one (the nail thing) in particular is a ghastly habit (sorry to all those that do) and one which is frightful to look at, while being extremely hard to avoid looking at it.

And for me, the sight of anyone removing the last shard of nail from his middle finger with the teeth of his bottom jaw while his fingers are turned into a loose, yet rigid fist... yuk!!!

No wonder they pick at the seam of cricket balls. And no wonder they need bottle tops to do it with.

I don't believe that the pressure of this business (cricket) is such that that level of self-mutilation needs to take place.

Yes guys, you've gone as high as you can go in the English game, you're earning relative pots of money, you've earned a deal of respect from some, and a little grudging respect from others.

Now put all that nervous energy into doing what you do best and STOP BITING YOUR BLOODY NAILS!
Administrator - Link to original thread on the England forum - Have England got The Mental Strength
Nominated by Ernest.

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