Timber!

Recently, the English Test team came to India talking about challenging the Indians for the second rank in world cricket. Two Test matches later, they are in shambles - their captain and coach were both fired, the new captain is struggling to score a run, and their team just lost by an innings after trailing by just 74 runs after the first innings. Shocking!

The English team relies too heavily on two players - Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff. Pietersen has delivered for them across the globe but Flintoff has not. Yes, he has been a menace to teams every time he plays and, in some cases (as Ponting in an Ashes Test and Kallis remember with horror) to the odd individual, but he has not had a match-dominating performance with the bat or ball. England has ridden him as hard as it can, and he has held the opposition in check without threatening to run through them. A similar argument can be made about Brett Lee, too. Lee has taken 310 wickets in Tests, and yet has never taken more than 5 wickets in an innings, and never 10 in a match, like Flintoff.