Wednesday, January 30, 2002 An unusual charge can be levelled at the England cricket team in India: it has been too settled. Duncan Fletcher mentioned rotation early on, but he hasn't got round to it yet. The only unforced change he and Nasser Hussain have made was to recognise that the decision to start with two spinners was a mistake. Andy Caddick hasn't had a sniff, nor has Owais Shah, and Graham Thorpe would still be a high-class drinks waiter if Jamie Foster hadn't "had it coming out of both ends" at breakfast on Monday, as Nasser so elegantly put it in his Captain Calling column.

At their best, either Caddick or Thorpe could have won this series. Now, they must be given the chance to level it. Hussain bemoaned the fact that his pace bowlers skidded nicely on to the bats of Tendulkar and Sehwag during the rout at Kanpur. Caddick doesn't skid. He is a hit-the-deck bowler, like Andy Flintoff, who has given the Indians plenty of grief - but better. According the the PwC Ratings, Caddick is the tenth-best one-day bowler in the world. And Gough is a better bowler with him at the other end. It is time to give Matthew Hoggard a well-earned rest.

Thorpe can replace Michael Vaughan, or Paul Collingwood, or even Ben Hollioake. Vaughan and Collingwood have done well, at least until their brainstorms at Kanpur, but not so well that they have suddenly become better batsmen than Thorpe. Hollioake just isn't there as a bowler yet, and may not be until Bob Woolmer gets hold of him if, as expected, he joins Warwickshire. It's not the extravagance - he concedes only five runs a game more than, say, Ian Harvey - so much as the toothlessness: a wicket every 80 balls in one-day internationals, against Harvey's 44. He should say yes to Warwickshire if only to get some tips from Shaun Pollock.

Dropping Hollioake would make for a less balanced side, but balance isn't everything. At Kanpur, thanks to Foster's indisposition, England fielded their most balanced side since the far-off days of Alec Stewart - six batsmen, six bowlers, the full 12-man team - and went down to their heaviest defeat of the series.

If Hollioake survives, he should bat up the order to make use of the field restrictions. Hussain is strangely reluctant to do this, but it brought the best, or not the worst, out of Flintoff on Monday and Hollioake has better credentials for it than Craig White, who was in line for the role until he was injured - in 37 one-dayers so far, White has been a specialist bowler, with a highest score of 38.

England's top order isn't working, and the problem is that only two of the top four have ever made a one-day hundred - the openers, Trescothick and Knight. Nasser Hussain, in 58 matches, has never made more than 95. Cricket people spend too much time worrying about hundreds, but they do tell a story in one-day cricket - it's simple, you get one if you come in early and you don't get out. Hussain, as Sanjay Manjrekar has been saying, keeps finding odd ways to lose his wicket. He should either drop down to give England another finisher, or shape up to give them another hundred-maker.

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Wicketkeeper turned gamekeeper Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com and former editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine.

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