Caddick's three-ball calamity

In a series which has been as one-sided as this one, there is inevitably the danger of being over-critical of the weaker side. When an ordinary team, which England are, takes on a side as good as Australia, weaknesses cannot help but be exaggerated and the losing side is made to look as much as 25 per cent worse than it is.

For all that, there have been far too many self-evident truths which the England players have apparently ignored. There was another glaring example of this when play began on the second morning of this fourth Test.

Australia had lost Mark Waugh to the last ball of the first day's play and three balls of Andy Caddick's over remained to be bowled. The new batsman Simon Katich, was playing his first Test innings and would not have been human if he had not been nervous.

The one essential for Caddick as he completed his over was to make sure that the nervous newcomer was forced to come on to the front foot and to play at all three of the remaining deliveries. You did not have to be a genius to work that one out.

Caddick should have been especially aware of this need because Katich is a left-hander and he often does not bowl a good line at left-handers. His first ball now was short and so wide of the off stump that David Shepherd must have considered calling a wide.

It was an unforgivable howler by Caddick, who walked back unemotionally to his bowling mark presumably seething with fury at his waywardness. He turned and ran in again and once more the ball was short and slanted well across the left-hander and was wide enough for Katich not to consider a stroke.

Again we had that slightly gloomy, military walk back with Caddick giving no indication of his innermost thoughts. Surely they must have been the same as just about everyone else on the ground: "Bring him on to the front foot and make him play".

He turned and ran in a third time and produced an identical ball to the second. Katich had been allowed to leave alone his first three balls in Test cricket – indeed he would have been out of his mind to have tried to reach them – and he could only have been breathing much more easily at the end of the over.

It seems incredible that such an experienced bowler as Caddick, playing his 49th Test for England, could make such a mess of it. Surely it cannot be incompetence or lack of direction from those in charge either. Perhaps it can be put down to lack of concentration or just to lack of coherent thought. It was incomprehensible.