Singed Graveney starts to stir the embers

The Ashes: Beleaguered chairman vows to keep on fighting as he rails against the English disease of parochialism

These are the worst of times for David Graveney. Every day, every hour, every minute now, is bringing news of fresh catastrophe from Australia. The latest experience was particularly gruesome.

The chairman of England's selectors had watched his team's one-day defeat against New South Wales on Ceefax. No pictures of the action, just the drip, drip of every ball being recorded on screen. He is considering enrolment as a water torture victim by way of light relief.

"It's been crushing for me, it's been crushing for the players and all the supporters who have followed them out there," he said. "There can be nothing worse in anybody's life than having dreams shattered, ruthlessly shattered. It hurts, it hurts, pressure is there, it sucks you in, so that you end up watching their progress on Ceefax.

"I don't think anybody could accuse me of not caring. I care passionately about the game in this country. It's been my whole life. God knows what I'm like to live with. That's the same in all walks of life, but you are in the public domain. I know that, and when things are as disappointing as they are at present there is no hiding place. You've got to accept that people will make cheap shots about English cricket, but it's like being stabbed in the heart."

Graveney has watched every ball, on Ceefax and otherwise, as England have gone under down under. Three Ashes matches in, three crushing defeats suffered; and he recognises that it is not necessarily about to get better soon. For the moment at least he is powerless to stem the tide and amid the wreckage of lost hopes and knee-jerk reaction he can only appeal for calm.

He will not submit to the wilder demands by resigning, but in his sad reflections he knows that the English system and mindset must change. In an ideal scenario, this would include the shuffling of the English summer so that tours take place at the beginning or end of the home season to give time for international players to have a proper and prolonged rest. But that is revolution and there are other less contentious matters that the chairman realises must be dealt with first. Or else the Ashes will be forever lost.

Graveney has another role in the English game as chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association. While the two positions might seem to conflict – how can you drop or discipline players whose shop steward you effectively are? – they also dovetail. He railed against the notion of counties signing two overseas players from next season – not to mention their ongoing search for EU passport holders not qualfied or willing to play for England – and the damage it might do to the national team.

"The infrastructure is a lot better now than it used to be with academies and especially the National Academy," he said. "Well, if resources are being ploughed in to create your own players, why promote a system that makes it difficult?

"With two players how many people will be coming in and out of the English game every summer on short-term contracts? What does it do to the aspirations of young English players? In Australia they just think we're mad."

It is against this parochial background of short-term self-interest that Graveney has been attempting to select an improving England team over the past six years. If he needs to learn lessons he knows where to look. Yes, you guessed.

"Since we have been in Australia, and it was also the case last time, they have shown that once they have their foot on our throats everybody has worked to keep it there," he said. "There have been no easy games, in fact every game is a war. If Australia A play against England it is indeed the next-best team and it doesn't matter if there are any state games going on. Everybody is working together for the good of the national team.

"When we have counties playing the tourists in England they usually field a weakened team, give players rests. I find it really odd but if that's what they want to do, let's play representative games, make it hard for them. And it would give us an opportunity to pick a side and see how the members gel together."

It is plain that England have not done well enough this winter so far, but the question most often asked of Graveney is could he have helped them do better? Yes and no. He insists that the selectors were not guilty of either naïveté or stupidity in dispatching a 16-man squad which contained at least three players (Gough, Flintoff and Vaughan) who were recovering from long-term injuries, and two of whom have not appeared in a Test.

The selectors were merely following medical advice and they had in effect covered themselves by sending Alex Tudor to the Academy and ensuring that Craig White was in Australia playing grade cricket. "We have never done anything contrary to what we have been told by our medical experts." Which begs all sorts of other questions, of course.

The injuries appear to have debilitated Graveney almost as much as the team. They gave him the opportunity to concur with England's coach, Duncan Fletcher, about the amount of cricket played by English professionals. Not that this is linked directly to the litany of casualties but did more cricket, he mused, expose them to a greater likelihood of injury? England's timetable is another bugbear the chairman would like addressed and here radicalism is brewing.

"I stress that we don't play any more international cricket than anybody else, but we are hampered by where we play and when we play," he said. "I don't know how we're going to get round it unless we have overlapping tours at either end of our season. It's something we've got to do or we'll be running out of players. Duncan has talked to the board at great length on this and they are sympathetic. Two weeks' rest is great but what they need is two months off to clear their minds of cricket."

Graveney's relationship with Fletcher has sometimes been reported as fractious. He shrugged his shoulders at such opinions. "He's a very private guy but we're fine and any success we've had is based on him and Nasser. I would be happy for them to continue as long as they want to." But what of Graveney, what of the Ashes, what of the English game in these dark days? "I'm not arrogant enough to think I've got all the answers or that it all washes over me and nothing sticks. If somebody says that I should go then I shall, but it has to come from the right direction. It would be wrong of me to speculate on the players in Australia now. That would destabilise a team who are already up against it and now we've got to be calm.

"I fervently believe we have some very good young players but they've got to be played at the right time. I always find it vaguely amusing that anybody over 30 comes in for a volley of criticism here, yet the Aussies have only got two blokes under 30. The worst-case scenario is that we send players to the Academy, invest in them, ensure their development and then, for reasons of recruitment elsewhere, see they're not able to get in their county side. What folly that would be, and it could happen. I'm speaking now because of the impact it could have."

Shortly after he arrived home Ceefax announced that Jeremy Snape had broken a thumb. Graveney was watching.