Cricket: Fletcher's view from limbo land

DUNCAN FLETCHER may not believe he was being handed a poisoned chalice together with the England coach's job but the realisation may have started to dawn that the elixir of life was not being proffered either. Nothing that has happened in the two months since the former captain of Zimbabwe was appointed has given him cause to reflect that easy times lie ahead.

Indeed, just about everything that has happened suggests that the poisoned chalice theorists may have a point. Fletcher may not have started the new job yet but from the announcement of his elevation, Glamorgan - the county he took to great and popular success in the Championship in 1997 and where he will stay until the end of the season - have suffered appalling fortune and stand at the foot of the table.

"I took the job after thinking about it and talking about it. The big media influence was a consideration, but if you allowed that to be decisive you'd be saying nobody would ever coach England again. I took it because it is huge," he said last week on the eve of the Third Test as Glamorgan were losing inauspiciously again.

Huge, he might have added, in all senses. "It is a challenge and I don't doubt it will take time. When Bob Woolmer took over as coach to South Africa he went to Pakistan and they lost something like their first six games. Two years later they were one of the best sides in the world."

Being coach-elect puts Fletcher in a difficult position. He has won the necessary votes, but cannot effect any of his policies until the actual induction takes place. He is careful not to make any pronouncements on the team selection or performance, although of course that might also apply when he takes office at last in October.

He remains on the fringes for the moment, though he is gathering information, seeking opinions. "There is a long lead-up to the First Test on the tour to South Africa so that will help in getting to know the players," he said. "There's no direct influence I can have, but I am thinking of the job, when I'm training by myself or running, of what I might be able to do and how it might be done. And I'm getting opinions."

Fletcher, 50, has also formed opinions of his own, although he is understandably vague about the specifics. If he is a coaching genius, and the whole of England trusts he is, it did not need much of that quality to work out that the team at present are lacking an all-rounder. "For the sake of the balance of the team it would be better if there was one. There are a couple of players out there who I think, given time and the right chances, could fill the role," he said.

All-rounders are important, naturally, and have been since I T Botham was a twinkle in his grandmother's eye. But what everybody in the country has an opinion on - and what most of them are angry about - is selectorial inertia. They are picking teams purportedly to beat New Zealand, rather than building one who might or might not lose to the Kiwis but would be in position to give the Australians a good hammering in 2001.

"That is a point for discussion," he said, perhaps - or perhaps not - indicating that he would be in favour of rebuilding. "There is certainly a point to be made getting a one-day team together now with the intention that they should reach their peak by the time of the next World Cup. And as for the Test team, that will certainly be considered when the touring party for South Africa is picked. It is something for debate." Enough there to suggest that if Fletcher is not plotting messy revolution he craves rapid evolution.

And once in, the boys can expect to be rewarded with some loyalty if Fletcher has anything to do with it. Which, as he has been awarded a place on the selection panel, he will. No "two caps and you're out sonny" from Fletcher's mouth, for he seems to realise that the art of selection is about judgement and identifying talent and then sticking with it.

"If they're in you have to give them a run," he said. "It eliminates doubt for a start. If you drop one after no time and then say to the next player that he's going to be given a run he may not believe you because of what happened to the previous guy and play accordingly."

Fletcher has a healthy belief in his own ability as a coach but is correspondingly adamant about the role's limitations. "You can help players, there's no doubt,and I'd like to think there's some I've helped. In my time in South Africa Jacques Kallis springs to mind, and I had quite a bit to do with Gary Kirsten and Herschelle Gibbs. You'll have to ask other people what my strengths are, but I like to get to know all the players and speak to them one to one. The key relationship is with the captain. It helps if you're of the same mind and can exchange ideas. With Nasser it's been immensely encouraging so far. We've obviously got a lot in common about the playing of the game."

He has developed a reputation as a coach of all the talents. Most of those who have come under his charge have spoken about his managerial skills. "You'll have to ask them," he said, "but what I do know is that players need talking to when they're doing well, not only when they're out of form. They need to be told then that what they are doing is right."

In his time as coach at Western Province, with South Africa A and with Glamorgan he has embraced modern technology (he is an ardent user of video and the detail it gives) and likes to be specific about technique. "I enjoy that side of it, although bowling is harder than batting, but centimetres of movement can make a difference."

Fletcher has also developed a reputation as a disciplinarian, although he denies this. "It's up to the players, but I do instil it into them that it doesn't matter what raw talent you've got, you must work hard. That's what Jacques Kallis did eventually and that's why he is such a formidable player now. Youthful laziness, I call it. But I don't impose curfews or anything like that. I remind them of their responsibility to the team."

All this wisdom, of course, is spouting forth from the lips of a Zimbabwean. Will not that undermine him in the job of coaching England, not least that his first home series in 2000 will be against his home country, the team which, as a player, he captained so ably?

"No, not at all. To me this is a job. A big job and I want my team to win." Not the poisoned chalice then, but Fletcher sounds like a sensible man who is aware he will not be drinking nectar for a while yet.