Notts, you're probably expressing my thoughts in the best way I could articulate them. A two-coach solution may not be the best and Duncan has been the test coach for some time. I'd like someone to succeed after the Ashes, and Duncan can be remembered for his sterling work with the test side. Something has to be done about the ODI side though, and Duncan is not the way forward as far as that goes. After the World Cup would be the most ideal time, giving the new coach a long gap before the next Ashes series and therefore more time to bed in and institute their own regime.

I don't think this is knee-jerk really, Duncan is a great test coach but we need to move forward from next year.

Thanks Colly. I'm probably not known on here as being pro-Fletcher but cannot disagree with the positives when you look at the Test record. However, can he take them any further forward? I know he's a very proud man, and that's as much a positive as it is a negative, but he really should have quit on a high after the Ashes. I truly believe in people leaving at the top. Don't stick around and risk your legacy becming tainted. I saw the greatest football manager leave with his club back where they started all because the great man was too pig-headed to believe thata is time was up and his powers on the wane.

Cloughie knows that too. Mind, he did make fun of my height when I met him! Unless you mean Peter Reid?!?! :P

I don't think Duncan should have left yet, the Pakistan series was not his fault, more the players' arrogance and the beginning of the injur saga that cost us the Sri Lanka series (though Sri Lanka played very, very well). I think he's got us well set up to retian the Ashes, but if he's in charge by time the next series comes around then that is too long for anyone to be coaching one team.

Fletcher's side did as well in the ODI tournament and ODI series prior to the Ashes as they did in the Ashes... and the record SINCE the Ashes has been worse in Tests than in ODI: no wins in Pakistan, one in India, one at home against Sri Lanka... and if we skip the nonsense series against the bowler-less Pakistan 'B' team the next series in the sequence will read away to Australia... where a win looks about as likely as it did in Pakistan.

By contrast... England's ODI stuff has looked reasonable!

Hang on a minute Rachael, lest we forget that our own B team was far more depleted than Pakistan's! Which of the following teams looks more depleted relative to the same countries' sides a year previously?:

Tresco, Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood, Bell, Read/Jones+, Mahmood/Plunkett, Hoggard, Harmison, Panesar.

Farhat, Butt/Hafeez, Younis, Yousuf, Inzamam, Iqbal, Razzaq, Akmal+, Gul/Afridi, Sami/Asif, Kaneria.

Pakistan was an excellent win, and India was an excellent draw under the circumstances. It is the ODI side that is our concern and the test form is fine.

Pakistan were missing Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammed Asid and Rana Naved (and Abdul Razzaq was either missing or as good as missing): that's an awesome hole to fill... and to be quite honest, the key replacements wouldn't have held down a first XI place at a top county! Umar Gul was the only seamer to play four matches and he was carted at an abysmal 3.87 / over. Sami was the only other seamer to contribute 100+ overs in the series and he put in what must be rated as one of the most consistently diabolical performances in the history of Test cricket, picking up 8 wickets at nearly 60 a piece and being carted for a whopping 4.25 / over.

The only creditworthy Pakistan bowling in the Entire series (tarnished by Shahid Nazir's non-contribution) came at the oval, during England's first innings:Of course... in England's second innings, Asif was carted at 4.64 and Umar Gul went at 5.00... and the dependence on Shoaib was again exposed.

The fact that England's bowling (aside from Panesasr) was also poor doesn't meake the series win meaningful... it just makes Pakistan's failure to at least force draws in the second and third matches quite unbelievable: quite how a team that made 538 off 141.4 overs in the first innings can fail to see out 48 overs a day later is something to ponder... and that's before contemplating the sheer scale of implosion needed for Pakistan to post just 119 (38.4 overs) and 222 (67.1 overs) on a pitch where England were able to post 461/9 dec!

It's wrong to consider an opponent that bad as offering 'Test' cricket: we remove Bangladesh and Zimbabwe from the equasion when considering Fletcher's Test record but that one series against Pakistan deserves the same treatment.

Now if we concentrate on the Tests between the Ashes series and the nonsense series against Pakistan... the results for the Test side read as follows:Now... I challenge anyone to argue that this Test performance is significantly better than the ODI performance.

Now... I'm not arguing that the Test performances have been ridiculously poor... I just don't think you can really argue that Fletcher's team's typical Test performances are that much better than his team's typical ODI performances.

Bottom line... he ain't got the players to sweep all before him... in either form of the game: the batsmen are OK... as the likes of Hussain and Butcher were ok... but none are really top-notch... not really bearing comparison with Thorpe or Atherton let alone with greats... and without Simon Jones the seam attack is neither better nor worse than it was in the Caddick-Gough era - it's decent, but not special (and this in EITHER form of the game).

The side can just about compete: that's a step up on how things were through the 1990s and for that, Fletcher deserves credit. It really is neither here nor there that other sides are better!

So they were missing a few players, have you completely forgotten how many players we were missing?

You're incredibly wrong to think you can deem a series win against tough opposition with a depleted side (us) as meaningless. Your logic is incredibly skewed and unsupported when you take into account our own situation. So they were missing three bowlers? We were missing our captain, the world's best all-rounder, the world's best reverse swing bowler and mentally missing one of the world's best openers, as well as our most experienced number 8 batsman/spinner! Add to that Jimmy Anderson, Chris Tremlett and Liam Plunkett.

You remind me of Ramiz Raja, nothing is ever to do with anyone except Pakistan!

So England won with their own 'B' side against an even worse Pakistan 'B' side... good for the England 'B' side! It doesn't make the performances worth of comparison with the performance during the solitary win in India or with the performace at Trent Bridge during the Ashes!

Rachael this post is a gross misuse of stats IMO.

Since the renaissance that started under Fletcher, with first Hussain as captain, and then Vaughan - the England Test record clearly outshines the one day record, I don't even have to bother proving that - it's so obvious.

England battered the West Indies in Tests in the West Indies both home and away, but fair so poor in ODI's that a crippled Flintoff had to be brought into the home one day series against the Windie's.

England defeated New Zealand 3-0, also beating South Africa - in South Africa, but the one day form did not match the Test form.

So England started strongly against Australia in the one dayers, but Australia dragged themselves back to win that one day series, before being beat in the Ashes (Test) series.

Pakistan onwards England's Test form has been much better than the one day form, to bring stats into this, England are rated 8 - only Zimbabwe and Bangladesh below them, and only two players rated, Flintoff and Pietersen - so that's proof Fletcher is not a capable one day manager and should be sacked with immediate effect IMO.

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Ern

It's like banging one's head against a brick wall. How was their side weakened more than ours? You're being very disingenuous to Younis, Yousuf, Inzamam et al if you think that Pakistan for the last decade have been a one-man team. Shoaib barely plays half their games and Asif is a novice. Rana is hardly a test giant.

I saw how hard we had to fight to beat them, and are you going to tell Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar that their tremendous efforts at Old Trafford were worth nothing? Would you say that face to face?

The Ashes doesn't come into it, as the best players from that test were all injured, and a home win against Pakistan with fewer fit players ranks alongside a drawn series in India in most people's books. May I remind you that we were well on the way to saving the final test, with Collingwood and Bell going very strongly, when the incident occurred. Asif was bowling then.