The anxious signs are there all right, mainly in the batting and bowling which has lacked conviction and consistency respectively, though the suggestion of an insular closing of the social ranks is unfair since the team have had a good time of it in Africa but have done so in their own reserved way. After all, there has been nothing in the way of a performance which warrants a wild party, and anyway, this is a team which is demonstrably without the boisterous personalities who characterised English cricket in the Eighties.
By nature this is an insular group, young at heart and of experience, but aware of their ever-increasing obligation to the image of the maligned name of English cricket. It is not easy to be entirely natural if you are surrounded by prying and often accusing eyes and less so if you have had limited exposure to life as a piece of public property. It's the old and confused ``if we stay in we're dull or bad mannered, if we go out we're irresponsible'' syndrome that afflicts sportsmen who are short of confidence or uncertain of how may be able to achieve.
Without any senior player who has a background of success in an England shirt - Stewart and Russell are the only players over 30 and disco dancers they are not - they are unlikely to change their tactic of stick with what you know and that can't hurt you
And it is the lads that Hussain jigged for in his joy of yesterday. Not quite an ``up yours'' to the critics, more: ``There is more to us than we are given credit for.'' The trouble is, credit can only be given when it is earned and until England can take a less talented opponent by the scruff of the neck and shake him about a bit, credit may be hard to come by.
The batsmen did really well this time - Hussain is beginning to look a formidable cricketer - without quite forging the dominant performance that they managed as a unit against Pakistan at Headingley in August. These are the same six as played there and as played at the Oval in the final Test of the summer, which is one from the selectors if ever there was one, and yet only one of them, Michael Atherton, is batting in the same position.
B OB Willis, who is here with television and who so desperately cares for English cricket, recently made it quite clear to the captain, vice captain (Hussain) and the coach (David Lloyd) that fixing something that was not broken made no sense. That England had searched in vain for a No 3 for as long as he could remember and that having seen Hussain respond well to the dubious challenge it was nuts to move him. But move him they did, and Thorpe, and the rest as well.
The problem comes from the placing of Alec Stewart, who is the all-rounder, and who prefers to bat high in the order. Fair enough; Stewart is better there too. For my money, and for Willis's the swap should be Nick Knight for Stewart but only if Stewart is truly worn out after a day and half, say, of keeping wicket. That way you leave the rest well alone. The management think otherwise, which is their privilege, and have done their homework with their men, which is fine when it works. Since is has, let's hope they stick with it.
The real credit should go to the six men who are in the shop window and the blessing is that all six are flexible enough, having batted in the top three for both their county and country at some time in their career, to go unfussily about their business.
If this team is to move forward and to pose problems for the Australians next summer then it is these six intelligent and classy cricketers who must lead the way. They must prepare themselves for Shane Warne by conquering Paul Strang and must prepare themselves for Warne's colleagues by selling their wicket so dearly as to drive the Zimbabweans and the New Zealanders to distraction. Big hundreds, double hundreds indeed, are needed, not just little ones, and little ones are better that forties and fifties.
This will take courage, concentration and enterprise and the chosen six have plenty of all three. It is just a question of getting a bit bloody minded about it all. During play that is, not in the pub.
YORKSHIRE have pulled out of a proposed floodlit Sunday League game at the Oval, planned for June 12 next year.
Surrey wanted to experiment with a late afternoon start in midweek and were standing by to install temporary lights.
But Yorkshire's chief executive, Chris Hassell, said yesterday: ``Our committee, though anxious to move with the times, felt they had a major responsibility to their members, many of whom would have been unable to get to the match.
``Yorkshire have a substantial travelling support and Sunday League cricket is very popular with a good number of members. By sticking to Sunday for the Surrey fixture, we believe we are keeping faith with our supporters.''