England captain Michael Vaughan

Vaughan scored 130 runs from eight innings in the World Cup

England's one-day strategy needs a complete re-think, according to a key figure in planning the team's future.

Brian Rose, a member of a panel set up to review the Ashes disaster, says England's poor World Cup results betray a failure to adapt to the modern game.

"Other sides are more aggressive. We don't seem to have taken the game forward in comparison," said Rose, Somerset's director of cricket.

"We have to come up quickly with a philosophy of how to play the game."

Rose is part of a seven-man panel, alongside Nasser Hussain, Nick Knight, Angus Fraser, Hugh Morris, Mickey Stewart and former European golf tour boss Ken Schofield, reviewing England's performances over the last four years, including the recent Ashes whitewash.

The review was set up to analyse what went wrong in Australia and to recommend the necessary changes to ensure it does not happen again.



It's no coincidence, for example, that the four semi-finalists in the World Cup are very aggressive at the start of the innings

Brian Rose

It will not necessarily be accepted wholesale by governing body the ECB.

Rose insisted that details of the review should remain confidential until it is published in May but he refused to single out coach Duncan Fletcher for England's World Cup failure.

Fletcher has guided England from last to second in the world Test rankings since taking over late in 1999 but his side are seventh in the one-day standings, above just West Indies of the major Test-playing nations.

"The comparison between England one-day performances and the English Test team over the last few years is black and white, apart from a few peaks," Rose told BBC Sport.

"I think Fletcher is trying to motivate them but for some reason it's not happening.

"But you just can't target one bloke. It's a combination of selection, coaching, captaincy and the players available at the time. It needs very carefully looking at and it needs looking at quickly."

England captain Vaughan, meanwhile, has had a disappointing World Cup with the bat, scoring just 130 runs in eight innings at an average of 16.25.



606: DEBATE

We need a new coach with new ideas who can objectively pick the team

DV

And Rose said Vaughan's continuing selection in the limited-overs side should be discussed as part of a wider-ranging rethink.

"You have to have a strategy first and then have a selection policy," added Rose.

"We've got to identify people who can perform at whatever level, whether it's one-day cricket or Test cricket. I'm not sure we've been good enough at specifically gearing our teams to specific tasks.

"If, for example, you went round the counties and said, 'Who are the best one day players?' they might not be the same as the best Test players.

"It's no coincidence, for example, that the four semi-finalists in the World Cup are very aggressive at the start of the innings.

"Michael Vaughan has been a great Test player for England and a great captain but his style of play is difficult to adapt to being aggressive in the first 15 overs of a one-day international.

"It doesn't seem to be compatible and I think his record clearly shows that.

"If the philosophy states that England will play what they consider to be the best one-day side, that may contain someone who is not the Test captain."

Former England captain Alec Stewart also stood behind Fletcher and said the players must be accountable.

"He's been the best coach that I've worked under in an England set-up and he's taken English cricket forward," Stewart told Five Live.

"Just a couple of years ago everyone was singing his praises. I'm more concerned about the way the players have played. I always say coaches coach and prepare, players play, and the players haven't played well enough.

"So it needs to be looked at. People start saying well is county cricket too soft? Do we not produce enough international-class cricketers? Those questions have been asked for a long, long time. I just want to come up with some answers."

Mumbai: Opening batsman Ravneet Ricky slammed a quick-fire 76 off 50 balls to steer Punjab to seven-wicket win over Karnataka in Group-A league match of the Inter-state Twenty-20 cricket tournament at the Brabourne Stadium on Monday.

After putting South Zone runners-up Karnataka into bat first, the North Zone champions Punjab bowlers managed to restrict the opposition to 143 for seven off their 20 overs.

Karnataka's opening batsman Devraj Patil played a responsible knock of 31 from 28 balls with two fours and a six while Love Abhilash (two for 23) was the most successful bowler for Punjab.

Even though Karnataka middle order batsmen C Raghu (32 off 29 balls with four fours) and B Akhil (33 off 28 balls with five fours) chipped in with useful scores they could not consolidate their position despite three of their top batsmen getting to their thirties, Karnataka could not consolidate in the end, which clearly showed their inexperience in this form of cricket.

However, it was the efforts of Ravneet Ricky, who slammed eight boundaries and two sixes, that gave Punjab the start they were looking for even though Yuvraj Singh (25) and Mongia (35) also contributed to the kitty.

Set to get just over seven runs per over, the Punjab batsmen got to their target off 19.5 overs quite effortlessly as Ricky had laid a sound foundation for batsmen like Yuvraj and Mongia to build in the middle overs.

Indian Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar's fighting 68 off 32 balls went in vain when West Z champions Mumbai lost to Tamil Nadu by 15 runs in a Group-B league match of the Inter-state Twenty-20 cricket tournament at the Motera Stadium on Monday.

South Zone champions Tamil Nadu, batting first, made 172 for five off their 20 overs. S Anirudh top scored with a patient 49 off 39 balls, which also included six hits to the fence, while V Devendran slammed a quick-fire 30.

Mumbai's promising youngster Rohit Sharma picked two wickets for 21 runs with his left arm off-breaks.

Despite Mumbai fielding eight present and former India players, they failed to take up the run chase as they lost wickets at regular intervals to be reduced to 157 for eight off their 20 overs one champions Mumbai lost to Tamil Nadu by 15 runs in a Group-B league match of the Inter-state Twenty-20 cricket tournament at the Motera Stadium.

Only Tendulkar, who hit ten fours and two sixes, stood tall among the ruins with Rohit Sharma contributing a fighting 25 off 26 balls.

For Tamil Nadu medium pacer P Amarnath (two for 38) and spinner A Ganapathy (three for 15) bowled splendidly.

Brief Scores: Tamil Nadu 172 for five off 20 overs (S Anirudh 49, V Devendra 30, Rohit Sharma two for 21) beat Mumbai 157 for eight off 20 overs (Sachin Tendulkar 68, Rohit Sharma 25, P Amarnath two for 28, A Ganapathy three for 15).

Relentless cut-tail has the remarkable power of stripping the veneer of decorum from any occasion, moving Adriel Richard, the CMC CricketPlus producer, to draw on his Bajan dialect, in the midst of a "live" update, to describe the extent to which West Indies bowlers were torn apart by South Africa's rampant batsmen.

"357 to win. Just like the caliber of bullet WI should shoot themselves with."

As this text message from a disgruntled fan back home revealed, a macabre sense of humour also prevailed at the interval in Grenada, with supporters of the regional side everywhere finding different ways to express their frustration, anger and pain at the manner in which the team on whom they have invested so much emotional energy dragged them to a new low in what has already been an increasingly dispiriting World Cup experience.

Even for a people given to often unfounded levels of optimism, especially in apparently hopeless causes involving their beloved regional side, it was asking a lot of a deflated home team to get anywhere close to a daunting target of 357 needed to keep any lingering Caribbean interest in this tournament alive, a prospect made all the more depressing with two Super Eight matches still to play next week in Barbados.

Maybe it was the memory of how humiliated they felt four years ago when, as hosts, they could not even advance out of the first-round grouping that prompted the South African top-order's merciless plunder in the quest to keep their own ambitions alive after the shock defeat to Bangladesh last Saturday in Guyana. It was an assault that silenced boisterous home fans keen on celebrating the magnificent reincarnation of the Grenada National Stadium.

More than the other new or redeveloped venues around the region, this impressive structure is symbolic of what can be achieved by the people of our tiny territories (with a little help from the Chinese, let's not forget) when properly motivated, even after the ravages of two devastating hurricanes only two-and-a-half years ago. Issues of accountability and sustainability notwithstanding, the point is that we can achieve a minor miracle, even if the fact that it has primarily been at the prodding of external forces and with the enticing prospect of financial rewards that will remain more than a little troubling.

At 87 for 3 after 15 overs, with Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sarwan in the middle, rebuilding a stadium almost from rubble would have seemed to be like chicken-feed compared to pulling off a record-breaking World Cup victory.

The poignancy of the moment was hard to avoid: a beleaguered captain in partnership with his talented but often impetuous deputy trying to rebuild the crumbling edifice of what were, just over two weeks ago, grandiose expectations of glory on home soil come April 28.

For all of Lara's proven genius with the bat and Sarwan's felicitous elegance, the overwhelming feeling was one of an effort too little, too late, even in the midst of strokeplay that almost took the breath away.

Patently fallible as captain and tactician (his decision to delay employing the final power-play until the 45th over was a recipe for even greater carnage), he remains peerless, even three weeks from his 38th birthday, as a strokeplayer, a square-drive off Andre Nel to the point boundary in the 17th over reminding everyone as to just how majestically destructive he can still be. His dismissal, though, bowled off the inside-edge by Jacques Kallis, was probably the lethal gust of wind that effectively left Caribbean aspirations in ruins.



'If the desolation was not as stark and the atmosphere not as suffocatingly sterile as at other venues so far, most notably the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, there was still an artificiality about it all' © Cricinfo Ltd





Too little, too late may also define the efforts by the World Cup organisers to bring some "West Indianness" to the tournament. Again it was more than a little unusual to see the ground, on a national holiday, for an ODI involving the West Indies, with hundreds of empty seats. If the desolation was not as stark and the atmosphere not as suffocatingly sterile as at other venues so far, most notably the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, there was still an artificiality about it all. Apparently the new campaign to energise the World Cup atmosphere is entitled "Ram de Dance". But they could have called it "Rama the Jamma" and it wouldn't really matter, simply because too many people feel betrayed by the entire event, taken for granted in what was expected to be their unstinting support for West Indies in particular and cricket in general, to the extent that they would not bat an eye at the boot camp-style restrictions in their desire to be part of the spectacle at any cost.

As they say, you can fool some of the people all the time, but even for people as gullible as we tend to be around here, you can't fool all of us all the time. Yet the mamaguile continues. On Monday, the media were advised that there was no such thing as "cheap tickets" for matches in Grenada. Troy Garvey, media communications director for the LOC here, explained that the prices of tickets had not been reduced, just the sizes of certain categories.

So, for example, if tickets for a certain category were going slowly, that category was reduced and the extra seats incorporated in a cheaper category.

If you can see any difference between that explanation and saying that tickets are now cheaper, then you're as disconnected from reality as so many key personnel involved with this World Cup.