A Lack of Leadership ?

Paul Collingwood has said that he would be happy to step up to the mantleas the England vice-captain. When you think about it, it would probablyhave to be Collingwood, despite his lack of any captaincy experience.

Paul Nixon has quite a bit of experience at county level (far more than he hashair!) but is a newbie to the International scene and it would beshort-sighted even for England to name a vice-captain who won't be playingpast the World Cup. Other than that the England team is one of youth and inexperience. Michael Vaughan is undoubtedly a good captain, but the cracks were showing against New Zealand. The bowling changes were uninspirational, the field settings suggested no form of organised gameplan and Vaughan just didn't get that fire-in-the-belly passion from his big guns. With a lack-luster performance against Canada following that, are England in need of a few new ideas ?

If so, the obvious place for them to come from is Andrew Strauss. Strauss has been vaunghted as future England captain for some time now and certainly seems to have the character and attitude to take the job on.....but he's not even on the field !! Ed Joyce is preferred (though on paper and even on recent performances I cannot see how Ed Joyce keeps out a world-class batsman and possible future England captain). So, on the field it has be Flintoff that Vaughan turns to at those crucial moments.

Worringly the England management have just slapped Flintoff across the wrists and made him stand in the corner like a naughty child. His position of authority among the players must have been severley dented and having punished him for his "lack of professionalism", can Vaughan be seen to turn to him for advice at the weekend ?

England's potential saviour, unsurprisingly, is KP. Should KP stride out to the middle and batter Kenya to all corners, then the bouyant spirit inthe England dressing room will likely return, the late-night drinking antics will be forgotten and England can move forwards into the Super-Eights a rejuvenated side. Should we just scrape through, though, there are an awful lot of cracks tobe papered over in the England set-up and the likes of Australia, South Africa and West Indies will be lining up to open them up.