Rodney Marsh to head England academy

By Ted Corbett

LONDON, JULY 28. Not only are the Australians on course to retain the Ashes - and in the same week that Shane Warne told England selectors how to pick the team for the next Test - a fair dinkum Aussie is to be named to turn promising English kids into international stars.

Rodney Marsh, the record-breaking wicket-keeper, supposedly the best captain never to lead Australia and now head of their highly successful academy, is to be director of the English Academy when it opens in 2003. In the next two years he will remain with the Australian Academy which is also the temporary headquarters of the English academy until work is completed here.

It is an extra-ordinary decision to appoint one of the England's oldest enemies to teach young cricketers here to be Test heroes but it is one that is being applauded. ``He may have got up our noses when he was their wicket-keeper but his record at the Academy in Adelaide speaks for itself,'' said one highly- placed official. David Graveney, chairman of selectors, first suggested that Marsh should be approached a year ago, and of course he is also backing the choice of Marsh for a job

which might one day lead to England regaining the Ashes.

Marsh has already had his impact on the England team. Craig White was at the Australian academy at the same time as Warne and there are times when his enthusiasm for fielding, his cricket knowledge and his ability to change tactics in mid-over show that he was properly taught by a man who has never had sympathy for those who failed to give total commitment.

White is now one of those players whose Test place is under threat but, as the selectors try to keep calm in the face of two overwhelming defeats, he may keep his place for the third Test at Trent Bridge beginning on Thursday. His defiant blows at the end of the second innings at Lord's when he stepped back to drive Jason Gillespie through the covers as he made 27 in half an hour may save him. Instead the selectors are likely to drop Dominic Cork, the other all-rounder, and bring in Robert Croft, whose off-spin is likely to be an essential ingredient of the five-man attack on that placid Trent Bridge pitch.

At times like these selectors earn their fat fees. It is also possible to feel sorry for them. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't, as the old saying goes. Should they make wholesale changes in the manner of Peter May, chairman of selectors from 1982-9 when 77 players wore an England cap? Should they go for youth even though the choice of Usman Afzaal this summer and Chris Read and Aftab Habib two years ago were disastrous failures? Should they bring in an old toughie as the selectors did in 1956 with Cyril Washbrook, in 1975 with David Steele and in 1976 with John Edrich and Brian Close? Jack Russell, perhaps.

Don't ask me to guess. The selectors held a meeting during the second Test, met again on Thursday and will meet at least once this week-end before the squad is announced on Sunday. Frankly, their task is impossible for, without Nasser Hussain - who cannot yet put on a glove without ``excruciating pain'' - and Graham Thorpe, who will not play until the final Test at the Oval later in August, their middle order batting is unstable. If they are to play five bowlers the batsmen must produce more runs. And, there is still the looming shadow of an announcement expected before the series ends that Alec Stewart will not go to India and that Michael Atherton is to retire.

Still, with Marsh in charge the future of England's Test men must improve but it will be a long time before his seedlings burst into flower. Perhaps England should appoint an Australian coach too. Don't laugh. It will happen one day.

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