England v Pakistan in the Gulf, 2015

Can't help thinking that the current crop of cricket reporters are as poor as England's spinners.

Step forward Scyld Berry whose Telegraph report of today's play inexplicably  begins, "With Volkswagen’s reputation having been tarnished this summer by the revelations about carbon emissions, James Anderson has been left as the brand-leader for the finest engine in the European market."

His report  concludes: "As Anderson then used the old ball – cherry red on one side, dusty on the other - to reverse-swing both ways, it was advancement through technology or vorsprung durch technik."

WTF is he on about?

Then I turned to Mike Selvey on The Guardian website : "Jimmy Anderson, who has conceded runs as grudgingly as Jeremy Corbyn would his pence on a Tory party flag day..."

Metaphor and analogy are wonderful literary devices when used intelligently. But this is just crap and lazy writing based on 'what's in the headlines on page one today and how can I lift it for an utterly irrelevant link to the back page?'

Selvey and Berry are to Cardus and Arlott what Moeen and Patel are to Laker and Lock!

The final match tally:

Broad & Anderson 11 -126

Rashid, Moeen and Patel 7 -423

If England lose - and personally I cannot see them getting 284 - the sole reason will be that the spinners failed to do their job.

Correction: two of the three need to come up trumps

Of all the many things that could be said about England's performance in this series, the most disappointing to me is that the more the English spinners have bowled the worse they have become. This has nothing to do with the relative amount of response in the wickets: there is as much turn in this wicket now as there appeared to be in Abu Dhabi, certainly on day 5 when Rashid was raising hopes. That's unusual, because you'd expect bowlers who don't often get the chance of a really long bowl to work on their experiences, and if they got clobbered in the first match for bowling too short, spend time in the nets and in the middle getting that fuller length, and so on.

That they haven't done so, and that Cook has reverted to the seamers as first and second lines of attack, only bringing the spinners on because he had to with Stokes absent, suggests that the coaching back-up isn't really working as it should do, encouraging these bowlers to use time in the nets and helping them to learn. I don't know if England have replaced Mushtaq as a spin coach, but I would have thought it would have been pretty useful to have a specialist out there in this environment. In turn that will work against building confidence between Cook and his bowlers, and that is a mutual thing, that he should feel that they are to be persevered with and will come good and that they believe that he will give them time to learn.

Whatever the cause the effect is plain and now there can only be a limited future for any of these bowlers whatever the circumstances. I don't disagree that they've performed badly, but they have performed better and now I think that chance has gone. What chance will there be for a more natural spinner - borderman reckons Ansari for this role - with a captain and coaching set up who will say "We gave our spinners 286 overs on spinning tracks in this series, and their 20 wickets cost 1158 runs. Why should I bowl a spinner for more than a few fill-in overs on greener or bouncier pitches?"

This, I think, is the nub of it. Jimmy Anderson said something similar when asked about the spinners; he said words to the effect that at Test match level you either learn fast or you will soon be gone.

Cricket at international level is like an arms race. New players arrive, show their talent and have some success. The opposition then finds their weaknesses and exploits them. The best players counter by correcting those weaknesses. Those who can't don't make it.

That's why the fab four/famous five/'England has a bunch of young players who will be playing test cricket for the next decade' line was so ridiculous. Of the famous five, Ballance, Buttler and Moeen Ali all had early success. Their peformances have since declined, two of them have been dropped and a third is on the brink. Whether they are good enough to overcome the  technical flaws that have been exposed and can come back as better players remains to be seen.

Part of the problem is that players like those named above  get plucked out of the county game so early and then play very little cricket (I don't think Buttler has ever played a full county season?). And playing regularly is still the best way of learning and improving. It's why Taylor and Bairstow are now better players than when they first played Test cricket and Ballance, Buttler and Moeen Ali are not.

Somone like Rashid is perhaps different.He  has played lots of county cricket but appears to have reached the plateau of his ability.  I know Shane Warne says England have to be patient with him. But everybody not only says that to succeed at Test level he has to learn to bowl  a bit quicker, but  the coaches have been telling him that for years; it's why he wasn't picked for England until now. Yet he seems incapable of doing it.

On the subject of Rashid. I have seen an awful lot of his county career. He has days when he can run through teams and others when he looks total rubbish. Everyone says, that is what you get from leg spinners. Unfortunately Warne was a complete one off and it is unfair to compare with him. Rashid is probably a better bet at 7-8 then Ali as someone who might take some wickets and will probably score the odd 50. Think of him as Ashley Giles not Shane Warne and he does not seem so bad.

Probably because at county level he takes 29 at 28 each in 210 overs bowling that way and everyone tells him he is invaluable. Once again, the gulf between the Championship and the Test game is getting wider each year.