Don't Make Football's Mistakes

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Moody - the only man for the job.

By Dave Tickner

There are already troubling parallels between the England cricket team and their football counterparts.

Both are something of a national joke at present, sitting somewhere between sex offenders and interest-rate rises in the popularity stakes.

And both shambled out of the World Cup at the quarter-final stage after a campaign that never rose above mediocre while at times plummeting to downright embarrassing.

And now both have parted company with an ice-cool foreign coach who raised standards and expectations without ever quite winning over the masses because they were a) a bit too foreign and b) didn't show the requisite "passion" demanded by dunderheads wrapped in the flag of St George.

Admittedly there were differences. Even the detractors had to give Duncan Fletcher kudos for orchestrating a first Ashes win in a generation, while the Zimbabwean was able to keep his hands off the ECB secretaries, which was also a bonus.

But are the ECB now about to follow the FA again and make a catastrophic mistake?

The football chaps took the safe option, promoting from within and giving the job to an Englishman to boot.

Look where that got them.

But the ECB look certain to follow and give Peter Moores the job, at least on a temporary basis. The safe option. The in-house option.

For all his admirable work at the Academy in Loughborough and his role in bringing through players like Alastair Cook and Monty Panesar, anyone thinking Moores will suddenly turn England's one-day side into world beaters is deluded.

For the England football manager's job, there were two outstanding candidates; Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink. The first was put off by the media circus that surrounds the job, and the second by being asked to go through the same interview process as Sam Allardyce and Alan Curbishley.

The ECB have only one outstanding candidate and must not repeat the FA's mistakes.

The only man who could come in and realistically improve the one-day side while maintaining Fletcher's high standards in the Test arena - where England are still ranked second, lest we forget - is Tom Moody.

He'll be available after the World Cup, where he has performed miracles as Sri Lanka coach, turning a collection of talented individuals into a crack team who field as well as anyone in the world and look like Australia's biggest threat.

But just as Hiddink got the hump and stormed off to take the Russian job, so Moody could take the coach's job at Western Australia, which is reportedly his if he wants it if the ECB don't move swiftly and decisively.

The ECB can't afford to let that happen. No interviews, no meetings for a cup of tea and a chat. Get him in.

They need only look to their footballing neighbours to see what could happen if they don't.