Here he goes again blaming someone else: but this time it's fair enough

Here he goes again, blaming someone else: but this time it's fair enough. Illy is a pragmatist, not a policymaker, and the job description changed subtly when he took it on - Dexter was chairman of the England committee, with wider responsibilities (which he discharged very well).And he is right that many of Illy's selections have been bad Dropping Thorpe in 1994 was a howler. He also listed the ages at which various current players have made their debuts and slipped up once or twice: Crawley 23 instead of 22, Ramprakash 22 instead of 21.But this doesn't mean his general thrust is wrong. He is surely right that Illingworth has never had a clear policy Whether this matters is another matter. (Luckily, he didn't attempt many first names.) No doubt he did see Cork bowl for England Under- 19, but if it was at Taunton in 1989, Wisden must have got the venues wrong.

Two years later, none of these five is still on the scene, while three of the five discards are back and doing well.Dexter was regarded with scepticism by many players, who found him distant. A common reaction to Illingworth is "at least he knows the players' names". And sure enough, in making the point just mentioned, Dexter wrote Tufnell when he meant Such, and Such when he meant Tufnell. Cork made his debut for England at 24 and was immediately successful. I call that a major inheritance."Strong stuff, and all supported with detail of the kind that Dexter's critics used to say he could not grasp.

He reminds us that Illingworth's first act was to drop five of the heroes of Barbados '94 (Thorpe, Lewis, Russell, Caddick and Tufnell) in favour of Gooch, White, Rhodes, DeFreitas and Such. ."So to the single player of stature to emerge during Illingworth's time, Dominic Cork, I saw him bowl for England Under-19 at Taunton in 1989. I sent him on three of his four A team tours and personally visited them. It is in the nature of things that each chairman starts on a low note. ."The facts suggest that the current chairman has in reality been groping along from match to match, picking from a pool of players ill-adapted to Test cricket and dogged by injuries galore in much the same way as I was forced to do, and indeed, Peter May before me."He [Illy] may not have inherited much from me, but why should anyone expect an inheritance anyway? Had England been holding the Ashes and the World Cup, I would still be doing the job.