THE constant ebb and flow of English sporting class warfare has taken a concerted drift towards the posh boys. While the football-loving unwashed bemoan the denial of an opportunity to kick up bovver in picturesque Alpine resorts next summer, the smug middle-classes are still basking in the unexpected bonus of an honourable showing in a Rugby World Cup Final, and imminent top level overseas competition for the cricket team.
England's cricketers are entitled to approach the three Test series in Sri Lanka beginning in Kandy on Saturday with optimism rather than trepidation, if only because it is nigh impossible for them to match the humiliation of their football equivalen
ts.
Sri Lanka are returning from a Test series in which they were familiarly bullied and battered by the remorseless Australians who at least bade farewell to the departing Premier John Howard with another demonstration of Australia's overwhelming superiority in cricket.
At home the Sri Lankans will be a different proposition. This is where they established their credentials as a Test nation, and heat and humidity will be the familiar 12th and 13th team members against England.
Compared to an England team that has been in constant and confusing transition since the Ashes victory two years ago, Sri Lanka's team is experienced and formidable, with Muttiah Muralitharan five wickets away from establishing an unassailable record as statistically the greatest Test spinner of all time.
Piqued by a surprising defeat in the autumn's one-day series, a format where Sri Lanka are normally measurably superior to England, the Sri Lankans will be keen to redress the balance with a Test series win. For some of their elder statesmen it might be their last chance to beat the English. Despite their Australian misery, they will be confident of doing so, identifying England's bowling attack as somewhat understrength.
The England coach Peter Moores is the polar opposite of Steve McClaren, with a public face that is relatively unassuming and reticent, and a rational streak to his team selection. Like McClaren though he faces the dilemma about how much loyalty, misplaced or otherwise, to show to senior players.
Andrew Flintoff's continuing injury woes have postponed the decision about whether the former Greatest Living Englishman is still an asset to the team or whether he has teetered into the realms of a Paul Gascoigne waiting to be told the bad news from Glenn Hoddle in 1998.
With the other member of the England bowling Blues Brothers, Steve Harmison, Moores has shown a surprising amount of patience and understanding. Harmison was allowed what amounted to a free trial in South African club cricket to prove he could still hit the mark. He took a few wickets, but was still spraying the ball around with the extravagance of a blind machine-gunner.
Harmison's presence on a tour where his notorious homesickness might again cause problems, and on pitches where fast bowlers do not regularly prosper, suggests a certain backward-looking nostalgia on England's part for the time when Harmison was one of the world's most feared fast bowlers. That is now far from the case, and his last few Tests have suggested that Harmison is in danger of becoming the opposite, a bowler whom opposition batsmen target as an opportunity to make hay.
The consistently underrated Matthew Hoggard, the steady and accurate Ryan Sidebottom, and the rapidly improving Stuart Broad could all be ahead of Harmison in the selection queue. James Anderson also had a better English summer than Harmison, although, like Harmison and Hoggard's, his fitness is questionable.
England will certainly play both spinners, the out-of-sorts Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann in the last two Tests, but might settle for just Panesar in Kandy. If Harmison can squeeze into the team, he (and Moores) will need to think hard about the best way for him to make an impact.
Hoggard 18 months ago in India proved he was intelligent enough to suit his action to the conditions, and maintain a variety and unpredictability to his bowling. That astuteness and discipline should be Harmison's model, but the erratic Geordie still seems tempted by the self-image of the instinctive and moody genius who goes his own sweet way. Unfortunately if he fails in Sri Lanka, it might mark the end of his England career.
The full article contains 729 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
