Fright for Freddie

A week that may well determine Duncan Fletcher’s

future began with the England coach issuing assurances about the state of Andrew Flintoff’s fragile left ankle.

Flintoff jarred it when delivering his first ball against Ireland on Friday and will be closely monitored in the lead up to Wednesday’s key World

Cup meeting with Sri Lanka.

The all-rounder has reported some soreness in his ankle although, fortunately, it does not appear directly related to the back of the foot which

required surgery last summer.

Fletcher said: "He had a little

problem but it’s not in the area

where the problem was before,

so we don’t see it as a serious

issue."

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When Flintoff is injured there

is a danger of the whole team

going into spasm, so any questions

surrounding his fitness

automatically cause alarm.

Fletcher has enough worries

anyway trying to lift the

performances of a team who

will probably have to beat Sri

Lanka or Australia on Sunday

to keep realistic hopes alive of

challenging for a place in the

last four.

Two defeats would force

England to rely on other

results going their way and if

they don’t, Fletcher’s hold on

his job will be looking more

tenuous than ever.

The last two matches,

against Ireland and Kenya,

were awkward assignments

that have been duly dealt with,

but they did show up a recurrent

failing of Fletcher’s team

since the 2005 Ashes; the ability

to finish off opponents

when they are down. He admitted

yesterday that they were insufficiently brutal when

Ireland lost two quick wickets

on Friday.

"There was some complacency

when we got into a

winning position and we have

got to make sure we don’t have

that complacency against the

better teams,’ he said. ‘We

have got to make sure that our

players concentrate for the

whole 50 overs and not just 40

overs."

There was a hint of exasperation

when he rightly pointed

out that most of his players

have been around at the top

level for some time and ought

to understand this.

He was more relaxed about

his underpowered batting trio

of Ed Joyce, Michael Vaughan

and Ian Bell, the ‘platform

builders’ who look so flimsy

compared with the top threes

of the other major nations.

"We are trying to play to our

strengths," he said. ‘You can’t

ask players to do things that

are foreign to them because

that would be pretty

disastrous."

Bell took 74 balls to score 31

against Ireland but Fletcher

insisted that his run-rate was

fine as long as he went on to

make a big score.

"Scott

Styris only made six off his first

38 balls against West Indies,"

he said, ‘but the important

thing was that he went on to

do the job, scoring 80 off 90

balls."

There was no hint that

Andrew Strauss will be

recalled and if the top three fail

to deliver this week, it may be

too late to bring him back.