Given there are no bowlers in the England squad who can either bowl fast or turn the ball appreciably, it would help if we could find three or four who at least knew how to bowl line and length. With the exception of Robert Croft, our bowlers seem incapable of bowling one side of the wicket on a nagging length. As Geoffrey Boycott pointed out (and we must never tire of quoting the masters), more wickets are taken at Test level by bowlers frustrating batsmen than by great deliveries.

It is certainly true that the best medium-pace bowlers I have seen - Alec Bedser, Les Jackson, Gus Fraser, Mike Hendrick and Chris Old, to mention but a few - nagged the opposition to death. What's gone wrong? Perhaps Richie Benaud has a point when he says that modern bowlers spend more time doing callisthenics rather than practising in the nets. Whatever the reason, the fact is we won't win a sausage until we produce bowlers capable of taking wickets on good surfaces. The Oval should be regarded as the test bed for aspiring bowlers, not some green top at Chesterfield where Albert Steptoe would have a good chance of taking six-for.

It is good to have Darren Gough back in the England team where he belongs. Maybe Phil Tufnell, far and away our best spin bowler, might get a tour this winter. We could spend the winter being better employed than playing Zimbabwe and New Zealand although given our present state of affairs they might well regard us as pushovers. What we must somehow discover between now and the Australians arriving is the habit of winning and all the martial music and stirring speeches will be as naught unless our players come to realise a slogan is no substitute for hard work. Ray Illingworth said he thought the England team had become more difficult to beat. The Pakistanis brushed aside that notion.

We are back where we belong, somewhere near the bottom of the heap. And since David Lloyd is an expert on the sayings of Winston Churchill, I suggest he digs out that one about blood, sweat and tears and plays it to his bowlers.

In the meantime, those of us who love cricket should club together to send A C Smith on a long sea voyage. As chief executive of the Test and County Clodpoles Club he must accept responsibility for the present parlous state of English cricket. In a less tolerant society, Smith and his acolytes would have been kicked out long ago. As it is, they cling to Lord's like desperate men, terrified of what might happen if they let go. A C looked a proper twerp the other day when he asked Surrey not to play Chris Lewis, who had been dropped from the England squad for turning up late for training. This colossal impertinence was treated contemptuously by Surrey, who not only played Lewis but made him captain. Good for them and quite right, too.

It was the second time Lewis had been late for England this season. On the first occasion, before the one-dayers against India, he was fined #80, which he paid with the champagne he won for being named man of the match and the series. The second transgression was more serious and severely dealt with. Too severely perhaps? A hefty fine might have been more appropriate than being dropped from the squad. Whatever you think about Lewis, his disciplinary record has been good. In 75 England appearances, this is the first time he has been disciplined. He could be forgiven for recalling England players in the past, guilty of worse than bad timekeeping, who were treated more leniently. Nor would any suspicion he was being singled out for special treatment be dispelled when A C Smith put his size 12s into his ribs.

If Lewis is going to fulfil his ambition and potential he is going to have to work harder than he has ever done before. He will best be persuaded by playing cricket rather than being banned from the game. Lewis is not the reason the Aussies think our cricket is a joke. Guess who is.

I WAS heartened to read that several county coaches and David 'Winston' Lloyd are disciples of Dr Ken West, an American, who says that to play cricket properly, eyes must be kept at maximum efficiency. This link between cricket and good eyesight is obviously an important one and I cannot imagine why no one thought of it before. It would explain some of cricket's great mysteries, such as why a team of blindfolded men never won the county championship, why Lord Nelson didn't captain MCC and why Samson concentrated on body-building rather than learning how to bowl a googly.

Under a new scheme, our best young cricketers will be among the first to benefit from West's discovery. They will winter in South Africa where West will demonstrate the virtues of playing with the eyes open. Not before time. My postbag reveals a growing suspicion that those England players wearing dark glasses are partially sighted, otherwise why would they voluntarily look so silly. If West convinces our players to throw their glasses away, it will be a miracle. He recommends techniques to make eyes more efficient and believes most cricketers would have better eyesight if they didn't drink so much tea or coffee. This is radical stuff and of such importance to the future of our game, I have no doubt the Test and County Clodpoles Board (prop. A C Smith) will be tempted to honour it with at least one working party and possibly several committees. My own solution for our wayward bowlers and blind batsmen are runway lights down both sides of the wicket with a luminous arrow pointing at middle peg. Our batsmen must be equipped with candles on their helmets and night vision in their visors. Moreover, it would be a great help if balls were equipped with bells. In this way I feel sure we will be world-beaters again while drinking as much tea and coffee as we like.

WRITING about why the Australians produce an abundance of good cricketers and we don't, I recalled seeing a field in Sydney covered in schoolchildren playing cricket and remarked the likelihood that in England the field would have a supermarket on it. William Harrison, of York, wrote to me pointing out there is little inter-school sport in New South Wales and that likely what I witnessed were games organised and supervised by parents.

Harrison stated: ``Australians don't look to the Government or schools to take responsibility. When there is something to be done, they get on and do it. Do you think we might develop an attitude like that in this country?'' Not when they are contemplating four episodes a week of Coronation Street we won't.