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THE headline in the Daily Telegraph, the newspaper favoured by cricket followers in Britain, was unequivocal: ``Woolmer wrong man for England''.

However much Bob Woolmer might say he is thinking only of South Africa's challenge for the World Cup, it should have been enough to make him splutter out his cornflakes at the team hotel in Northampton, where they are preparing for Wednesday's match against Sri Lanka.

Woolmer, a former England opening batsman whose contract with South Africa expires after the World Cup, has long been regarded as the favourite for the England job, which also becomes vacant after the World Cup when David Lloyd's tenure ends.

The problem for Woolmer is that he wants a sabbatical. In particular he would find it impossible, as he spelled it out in the Sunday Times recently, ``trying to undermine what's been built up over five years,'' if he had take the England post in time for the tour of South Africa later this year.

Michael Henderson, the Telegraph's new-age cricket correspondent, a feisty, youthful and entertainingly opinionated northerner, uses this understandable equivocation to argue that Woolmer's heart would not be with England.

Henderson acknowledges Woolmer's achievements with Warwickshire and now South Africa, ``although he really needs to take the World Cup back there to seal the relationship with a kiss.''

Although Woolmer has been courted by the England cricket chairman, Lord MacLaurin, Henderson writes: ``He is stalking a man who is now a South African in all but name. Woolmer has spent the better part of two decades there, has made his personal and professional life in Cape Town, and is on record as saying that South Africa is the greatest country in the world, which suggests that he is not only a first class coach; he is also an accomplished comedian.''

Henderson says Woolmer has invested too much ``emotional capital'' in the South African job that ``it makes no sense for him to take on another demanding international post, even after a nine-month sabbatical.''

The writer concludes: ``There is little point in trying to persuade somebody who, in his heart of hearts, does not covet the job.''

No surprisingly, Woolmer's latest innovation, the microphone earpiece with which he kept in communication with Hansie Cronje and Allan Donald during the opening overs of the victory over India on Saturday, continues to attract attention.

Henderson's view? ``South Africa came here as favourites but, as Woolmer clearly doesn't trust his captain and his best bowler to think independently, they have, at a stroke, made themselves appear less formidable.''

Mark Nicholas, the former Hampshire captain, was more sympathetic in the same newspaper. ``Trust South Africa to come up with something new. Trust cricket administration to stamp on initiative, alternative thinking.''

South Africa, meanwhile, have decided against trying to get the International Cricket Council to reverse its decision to ban the earpiece, a ban imposed because clearance had not been sought.

Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board, said there would be experiments with the system in domestic cricket before a case would be made to the ICC.

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