A NOT SO CUNNING PLAN

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Flintoff's plans didn't pay off.

By Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer

Like Baldrick, England had a cunning plan.

Unfortunately they pinned their secrets of how to dismiss Australian batsmen to the dressing-room wall during the fourth Test, only for them to turn up on radio and television on both sides of the world.

And the inevitable conclusion, as famously supplied by Edmund Blackadder, was that Duncan Fletcher, Andrew Flintoff and their band of Ashes underachievers "wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, danced on a harpsichord and sang: 'Cunning plans are here again."'

Whether the tactics compiled by England team analyst Mark Garaway on a somewhat grubby piece of paper were begged, borrowed or stolen is unclear, although I can see why England's players would be embarrassed and disheartened by the loss of such 'sensitive' material from their inner sanctum.

It is right that questions are asked, security is reviewed and sturdier drawing pins selected for future matches.

But I, for one, was pleased to learn of England's 'Melbourne-gate.'

There have been times on this shambolic tour when you could have been accused of thinking Fletcher's cricketers put as much thought into a day's play as what sort of sandwiches to have for lunch.

It looked that way in Adelaide when Flintoff curtailed a first innings which should have ensured England were safe from defeat with a declaration which ultimately handed the Australians the chance of victory which they took and which remains the defining psychological act in this series.

It looked that way, too, when Fletcher and Flintoff insisted on keeping Monty Panesar out of a team which was crying out for a game-changing bowler.

At least the revelations proved England were still alive and thinking and not just going through the motions at the tail end of a demoralising series.

The way they hit back in the first session of the second day, especially Flintoff's dismissal of Aussie captain Ricky Ponting who he lured into his dodgy pull shot, underlined that.

On the other hand were those detailed studies really any use when England appeared not to have a clue how to stem Andrew Symonds' destructive batting as he raced to a maiden Test century and a 279-run partnership with Matthew Hayden?

The changing-room wall had said Symonds was susceptible to the bouncer. So England bounced and bounced, only for Symonds to let them all whistle safely by.

Maybe Symonds had tuned in, like most of Australia, to the nation's ABC network which, during the course of his innings, was busy reading out the England secrets which the channel claimed had been emailed to them by a source.

If so, those particular best laid plans would have been better laid to rest.

You could say the same of so much of England's work during an Ashes series of many questions.

Why does best batsman Kevin Pietersen bat as low as number five when he constantly runs out of partners?

Why has Michael Vaughan presence in Australia been allowed to undermine current skipper Flintoff?

Why, oh why, did Flintoff, having won the toss, deny his bowlers first use of a damp, seaming wicket in Melbourne only to see his batsmen skittled out for 159?

There is about as much logic in all that as Baldrick etching his signature on a bullet to keep safely hidden with the explanation: "They say somewhere there is a bullet with your name on it."

Unfortunately, too often England's Ashes plans have been a bit like that. Not very cunning.