The major difference between Marsh and Fletcher was surely one of style and ambition: Fletcher came across ass pragmatic through and through (as if only winning mattered).... where Marsh came across as retaining considerable concern with how the game was played.

That said... Fletcher clearly liked to let his captains set the tone and style of the side... so we shouldn't be overly hasty in attributing decisions to the coach alone. Did Fletcher decide Read's face didn't fit... or was it (first) Vaughan and (then) Flintoff?

I don't suppose either man has perfect judgement on all areas... and their differences on wicket-keeping were fair enough: Marsh thought it better to teach someone like Read to bat, Fletcher thought it better to teach someone like Jones to 'keep - and either would have worked if the faith had been shown for long enough!

Same with Collingwood: Marsh is surely right that he's keeping out players with more potential... but Fletcher is surely right in arguing that Collingwood's making the best of his talents (and bringing a lot to the side) in a way that other players might not.

At least with Marsh, though, you get clarity: his judgement may not (as with anyone's judgement) be 100% on every occasion... but he is pretty straight talking and spells out a well thought through outlook on the game that is pretty robust and well Tested - you'd not get Boycott saying that he "doesn't know what he's talking about"!

Firstly, Winning is what it is all about, it is sport, you win, you lose you draw, BUT the main judgement of success is how many times you win

Secondly, are you really trying to argue that Marsh was not as interested in winning? He is an Australian, they are brought up to win. It is fed into them at an early age, it is part of their culture. We celebrate Silver and Bronze, the Australians are only interested in Gold. Marsh was exactly the same.

One might ADMIRE a team that wins through players like Mark Richardson, Graham Gooch, Nasser Hussain, Mark Butcher, Paul Collingwood, Alec Stewart, Dwayne Bravo, Ashley Giles, Daniel Vettori, Chaminda Vaas and Zaheer Khan.... but one ASPIRES to COACH a team of players like Chris Gayle, Ian Bell, Mark Ramprakash, Mark Waugh, VVS Laxman, Carl Hooper, Chris Read, Chris Lewis, Harbhajan Singh, Steve Harmison and Phil Tufnell - players who give the team the potential to be far, far more impressive!

Coaching either, you coach to win... but as a selector / coach you should surely be aiming at getting great performances out of genuine talents.. and then (if necessary) settling for something less.... not merely aiming at the reliable mediocrity that seemed to be the height of Fletcher's ambition!

But Tests are won by great performances and great performers. Even so someone like Lara was one of the great players of his generation, but he lost more than he won?? Cricket is a team game, and you need to work with both great players and hard working players to blend a match winning team, that is the skill of a great coach.

The best players need very little time with the Coach, as they offer no challenge, but taking a player like Collingwood, and getting to a stage where he is able to score a double hundred against Australia must be more of a challenge to a coaches skill. I doubt that Fletcher was aiming a mediocrity - reliability and flexibility was more his aim.

Surly the point of sport is to win, apart from the English, who remembers the losers?

My point was merely that there's more than one approach to winning: neither Fletcher NOR Marsh were prepared to tolerate prima donnas who didn't put the work in... and both recognised the need to work with "difficult" talents like Harmison... but you'll always get marginal decisions... and in those cases their instincts struck me as divergent.

Jones vs Read embodied that more than most: it wasn't just "batting vs glovework"... as Jones was clearly seen by Fletcher as far more than just a wicket-keeper-batsman - he was handled as a senior player, valued for his contribution to the dressingroom and his leadership in the field and regarded as full of potential despite repeated failures in the middle.... in sharp contrast to Read (recall the handling in Aus).

That is where I feel they have both improved English cricket since the Gooch/Stewart (father and son!) days.

Gooch's handling of the greatest English bat of the time was nothing short of disgraceful as was Stewarts refusal to pick Caddick and Tufnell because they were "difficult".

Thankfully niether have anything to do with the running of the English team and hopefully they never will!

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Mark.

stewart buggering off was the best thing that could have happened to england and started their resurgence. FACT.

Good post Rachael.

Interesting discussion of glovework between Blowers and Stewart on TMS in the last half hour: about the best they could say of Prior was that he is a natural athelete. Prior was absolutely castigated for being back on his heals instead of on the ball of his feet.

The discussion of his haunched-position was interesting: Stewart is old-school "squat low and spring"... and doesn't like Prior's more modern, goalie-style "crouch". The down side of the squat, of course, is that it enables better ground-coverage to balls going down the leg side... and minimises the need for gymnastics.

What's damning about the verdict on Prior is that Blowers and Stewart thought he'd actually move better from a full squat: he's so damn wooden that he makes no real asset of the position he adopts!

Roll on Read, Foster or Mustard!

Not going to happen with Moores in charge,the same as we had when Bumble and Athers were in charge giving caps to ordinary players like Watkinson and Martin.

County bias will always win out,if Prior is bombed i bet Ambrose the ex Sussex man is next in line.