Fredless England will need positive spin for Pakistan challenge

October 29, 2003 is not a date that resonates through English cricket. Michael Vaughan's England were in Chittagong and beginning the second Test of a mismatched series against Bangladesh, a game they were to win by 329 runs. So no big deal. Except that this was the last time an England side took the field in a Test match without the Colossus. Since then they have not been Fredless for 32 matches, the last six of them captained by the rumbustious lad himself.

The first Test against Pakistan then, which begins at Lord's on Thursday, will come as something of a culture shock to the team for while they prepare to undergo a stiff examination, their focal point and talisman will be contemplating his comeback from an ankle injury. They might just feel a little lost. Andrew Flintoff is never away from the action: he bowls fast and furious, descending on batsmen like an avalanche on an off-piste skier; bullies bowlers into submission; catches swallows; cajoles, urges and inspires. He is utterly irreplaceable.

Yet somehow the selectors, when they meet tomorrow, must come up with a formula that can compensate for the absence of Flintoff's all-round excellence while still maintaining a competitive balance. It will not be easy. Something - either the batting or the bowling - has to suffer in depth. Flintoff the bowler can be replaced, to a degree anyway, by another seamer; Flintoff the batsman with another front-line player. But unless they can obtain agreement to play 12-a-side, they will not be able to do both. The fielding, given that Flintoff is one of the finest, most secure catchers of a ball ever to tug on an England cap, has by definition already been depleted.

Were this match being played in early May, as against Sri Lanka, there would be little debate. The batting would be bolstered with the probable choice of four seam bowlers, with the absence of a spinner. This is midsummer though and the storms of this past week will not compensate for the lowering of the water table. Lord's pitches tend to play better at this time of year, less helpful to seamers, but offering a little more to spin. The dilemma then is how to get sufficient pace bowling while allowing a spin option, and how not to weaken the batting in so doing.

One can almost hear Duncan Fletcher arguing his case. Jamie Dalrymple, he will say. He can bat at six and provide the spin option. For Fletcher, a man who appears to distrust Monty Panesar to do anything other than bowl beautifully - as if that was not sufficient in itself - Dalrymple has been heaven-sent. Performances in a one-day context can flatter to deceive, though, with the brisk 30 merely a starting point for a Test batsman, while a Test match bowler should be looking for more than just a few fill-in overs while the seamers have a break, which would be his function in this side.

There was no greater example of this than in Nagpur when Ian Blackwell, who might have been the lone spinner had Panesar not been given his debut, was considered good enough only for seven overs to Panesar's 42. Kevin Pietersen could do that.

You cannot beat the real deal and the Dalrymple option, while a success in the limited-overs format, should be resisted for Lord's. Instead a sixth batsman, probably Ian Bell, should be brought in, allowing Panesar, who lest we forget took five for 78 in the second Sri Lanka innings of the last Test and then biffed 26 as heartily as any other tailender, to continue his development.

The mathematicians then will have spotted that this allows for just the three seam bowlers, with the concession that Paul Collingwood (who along with Pietersen should be fit to play after missing the last two one-dayers through injury) will, as England's best seamer during the NatWest series, feel more than qualified to fill in.

The two main strike bowlers will, of course, be Matthew Hoggard, the enigma who is as good an exploiter of the new ball as any in the world but somehow considered superfluous when it comes to using the white version in one-day cricket, and Steve Harmison, who has some way to go before he recaptures the consistent menace that for a brief period propelled him at 90mph and more to the top of the tree.

The third place ought to go to Liam Plunkett, who bowled well enough in the first two Test matches against Sri Lanka, and will not be placed under the same pressure as that administered by Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharanga and Mahela Jayawardene in a different context. He needs plenty of bowling, though, to rediscover the rhythm that can be disrupted by a caning. Sajid Mahmood, in whom there has been investment, should be included as cover, although there could be a move to introduce Stuart Broad to the international atmosphere.

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