Bowling efforts have been poor, broadly speaking

LIKE father, like son. England bowler Stuart Broad came out earlier this week blaming the umpires and pitches in the West Indies for his team’s woeful inability to grind out a positive result.

“It has not been a fair battle between bat and ball,” he said. “Twenty hundreds and four five-fors in a series hardly creates fair cricket.”

Sorry, Stu, but fair doesn’t come into it.

Sure, the series has been a batsman’s paradise. But England have also been the orchestrators of their own downfall.

The first mistake was the perennial one: insufficient preparation. Two three-day warm-up matches in quick succession isn’t enough, as illustrated by an uncooked batting line-up being skittled for 51 in the First Test.

That result gave the West Indies the spirit to secure a draw the next time the sides met in the third Test (the second was abandoned).

At the same time, England could have done with getting on with it when setting a total in the second innings, which contained the daftest cricketing decision — sending in Jimmy Anderson as a night-watchman — since the Australia and Sri Lanka teams were forced to finish off last year’s World Cup final in almost total darkness.

Overall, though, the main downfall for England has been a lack of fighting spirit as epitomised by a continually poor bowling effort. Even if they were quite literally bowling on a featherbed, surely one or two men have to step forward and offer some variety, to put a few questions to a side which last won a series in May, 2004 — against Bangladesh.

Sadly, the seemingly resurgent Australia will now be licking their lips at getting stuck in to an England attack which lacks any teeth whatsoever. Taking 38 wickets in four full Tests, as England have on this tour, simply isn’t good enough.

Nor, more seriously, was father Chris Broad’s swipe at the Pakistani authorities following the terrorist attack in Lahore.

That the ICC match referee was involved in an horrific and traumatic situation is beyond doubt. There are undoubtedly questions to be asked surrounding the security he was offered, along with the Sri Lanka team and other officials.

“We are all extremely lucky to be here today,” said Broad afterwards.

Luckier, certainly, than those six Pakistani policemen who died in the incident. A man in Broad’s position should have offered a few words of sympathy for those families who weren’t as fortunate. 

* IN THE most unexpected appointment since Arsene Wenger rolled up for an eye test, Bobbie Goulding has somehow landed the job as the France RL team’s coach.

There are enough juicy tales of Bobbie’s on and off-field antics over the years to fill plenty of columns such as this one.

Then again, yesterday’s news is tomorrow’s poisson-frites paper. Bobbie has been handed a rare fresh start and if he is capable of anything, he can certainly shake things up across the channel.

The mid-season Four Nations tournament which also features England, Australia and New Zealand suddenly has an intriguing extra ingredient.