To "mislay" one memo to your players citing opposition weaknesses may seem like an accident. To lose two, Oscar Wilde might have said, is careless. To let three go astray, as John Buchanan has now managed to do in successive stints as coach of Queensland and Australia, is taking the proverbial.

It's more than four years since case one. In March 1997 Queensland (coached by John Buchanan) were due to meet Western Australia in the Sheffield Shield Final. As the 1997 edition of Allan's Australian Cricket Annual reports: "Two days before the game a seven-page dossier on key Western Australian players disappeared from the Queensland dressing-room at the WACA Ground and turned up in the hands of Perth commercial radio station 6PR, whose sports commentator, George Grjlusich, read extracts of the Bulls battle-plans on air. The leak, or theft, had little if any effect on the game."

However, according to a contemporary edition of The Australian, the memo's contents make some interesting reading. For example on Damien Martyn (a member of tomorrow's Australian Test team at Trent Bridge): "Feet don't move early. Bat leaves him. Test his ego." And on Western Australian skipper Tom Moody's bowling: "Finds it hard to bowl spells. Hold him up at top of mark. Annoy him by breaking rhythm. As day goes on, less effective."

Buchanan - loses things Photo CricInfo

Three years later, a ten-page game plan on how Australia (coached by John Buchanan) could beat New Zealand in the one-day series there was apparently stolen. It contained blow-by-blow notes on New Zealand weaknesses. Roger Twose, for example: "Not quite sure he believes in his ability. Stick it up him", Nathan Astle is a "bad runner" and Simon Doull "will bowl a four ball".

And so to The Ashes 2001, and Buchanan's claim that England are "hanging on to excuses (injuries, the toss, bad luck, dropped catches)". If the England camp are concerned, they're not showing it. In his latest CricInfo diary entry Alec Stewart writes: "As far as I'm concerned that's nothing to do with us. Australia have their strategies and we have ours. In my view the things that happen in the dressing room are private, and that's the way it should remain."

However that may be, Stewart and his teammates could do worse than reflect on the notes of Queensland's coach four years ago whenever Damien Martyn comes in to bat at Trent Bridge over the next few days.

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