ICC World Cup

Indeed, and perhaps by looking into this we can identify what went wrong, and how to put it right. Almost the first question to be asked is, Do we want a coach or a manager? Are we looking for someone who can give guidance to established cricketers on how to improve their game by , say opening the face, taking guard a little further towards off stump, begin the run-up in a certain way or pivot at the crease without falling away, all those kind of things? Or do we want a team manager, who develops strategy leaving the captain on the field to employ tactics. Such a role would require the respect and involvement of the whole team and should not be seen as the external imposition of an internal structure, but something more like the articulation of the best way to harness all the individual talents of the team.

A problem for people like Moores and Flower before him is that they seem to be stuck halfway between those two different functions. Whilst they both had numerous technical coaches, analysts, and support staff they both seemed to lack that group buy in to their theories and ended by saying "This is the way to do it - the stats tell us so, therefore it must be true", rather than by encouraging Anderson and Broad to work in the nets on finding the right length to allow the ball to swing in those conditions, or by helping the unforunate Ballance to look less like a stranded hippopotamus at the crease. A good manager can see where these problems are likely to occur and rather than intervening themselves they will encourage the players to think about how they are performing and have specific technical advisers their to help them achieve change - and not impose change upon them.

Maybe we need someone less theoretical and more collegiate - a style Lehmann seems to have adopted with some success.

Very loyal from Farbrace and I'm sure that he and Sri Lanka worked out a good modus operandum for using statistics intelligently and appropriately as part of team preparation. However, the revealing part of the Telegraph article you quote is this "The problem for Moores is that he often struggles to concisely and clearly get his points across in media interviews so confusion was bound to occur at some point."

Is it not possible that Moores may also have difficulty in concisely and clearly getting his points across to players, especially where he has a strong-minded captain who has decided against team meetings which he believes are "... unnecessary and wear down the players"? And if there is a widespread difference in attitude to the way players perceive the value of these stats ("Ian Bell is someone who is very well planned, a well-organised bloke who probably looks at footage in detail. But Moeen Ali has told me 'I'm not interested in what's on my iPad. I just want to go out and play'") then that suggests that playing data has become the 2015 equivalent of voluntary nets, something that may be fetishised by some and abhorred by others? If that is the cause then Farbrace can't really attribute the use of stats with the Sri Lankan team to their own success - unless every single player in that side was as fetishistic as a Bell or a Gooch, and unless Farbrace was specifically and carefully explaining to each player why they would find benefit in turning on their i-pad and looking at the data so expensively uploaded?

I don't think that anyone is claiming Moores or Farbrace didn't care. I'm sure they did, and I'm sure what has happened hurts very deeply, particularly to Moores, a private and intense man who finds it hard to achieve detachment from his role and responsibilities. Whether the players chosen for the squad were the best possible - and I entirely accept and agree with flashblade that that "possible" is contingent upon, and limited by, the blinkered attitudes of the ECB and the county authorities over the last 4 or 5 critical years - is moot. Morgan was in lousy form when he received the hospital pass of the captaincy, Anderson has never been a particularly effective one-day bowler outside England, Broad had injury issues and the balance of the squad was skewed toward the idea that a resurgence of the Test side last summer must automatically equate to a resurgence of one-day cricket from the same players.

 - and even he isn't English.

It was so long ago I don't think they existed - for the better.  Statistics are all made up anyway, 93% of people know that.  Hiyaaaaaaw!

I'm with CP, although he had no answer to FB's question, the bit about losing the old boys like Bell, Anderson and so on, I'm well with that.  Christ knows about Morgan and Moores but build a one day side around Hales, Vince, Roy, Root, Taylor, Buttler, Stokes, Jordan, Woakes and a proper spinner, whoever it is - Riley or Briggs but give them a proper run.

P.S. Thanks moddy, but I'm much calmer now I'm back in the asylum.  It's all sunshine and lollipops from me.

Two wickets with short-pitched balls and the batsman obligingly doing what's expected of him: looks like Moores/Morgan's strategy has finally paid off. Shame it's not England but Pakistan who carry it off.

Did West Indies have a prior engagement elsewhere? To be bowled out for 250 in 30.3 overs shows a lack of professionalism. Samuels costed his side 233 runs by dropping Guptil on 4.

www.espncricinfo.com/icc-cricket-world-cup-2015/engine/match/656489.html