Perhaps England have to make a bold call this week at Headingley and consider leaving out one of James Anderson or Stuart Broad.

Anderson’s record at Headingley has improved in recent years but neither has particularly enjoyed bowling in Leeds which requires a fuller length. I am sure England will pick both of them but it might be an idea just to consider doing something different because at the moment it is not working.

England will probably make a bowling change and the easy call is to drop Mark Wood for Chris Woakes. But Wood is the future. He needs a run of games. He tried to be the enforcer at Lord’s by bowling short in conditions that did not require that kind of approach. That was a mistake and he took a wicket with a lovely, pitched up delivery.

In England he needs to bowl a skiddy, fuller length at pace using his good bouncer as the shock ball. We want to see him playing a lot of cricket not constantly being chopped and changed. He should not be the one that misses out.

England are losing. The Test team are just not playing very well and something has to be done. Anderson and Broad are brilliant bowlers but it would be a wake up call if one was left out.

Having three senior players in the team in Anderson, Broad and Alastair Cook is very difficult for Joe Root to manage. They are legends of the game and still have a lot to offer, but we can all see the natural end for them next summer and the one thing they cannot be doing is just hanging on until the end of the Ashes.

They have to buy in and lead the team. Test cricket is a tough game even when you are 100 per cent focussed. If there is even five per cent of the mind looking at the next step in your life then hampers your performance in Test cricket.

Those three have to drive England’s rebuilding before they go. They have to give a lot more than just turning up and playing. England have some serious talent. Cook, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Anderson and Broad are serious cricketers. If they are playing 10 per cent under their potential that is fine. But at the moment they are playing 50 per cent below their potential. It is a long way short. That is when you know there is clearly something not right.

Pakistan were hungry and desperate to perform at Lord’s. They had a bowling unit that worked together both in morning prep and out in the middle. They bowled a length that encouraged the opposing batsmen to come forward on an English pitch in May. If you are patient and keep doing that you will create chances. If someone played a shot they did not pull back their length and go short. They kept bowling repetitive, basic cricket.

Things went awry for England at Lord's credit: ACTION IMAGES

Their fielding unit was agile, looked desperate to touch the ball, backed each other up and held some good catches., Again basic cricket. When they had bat in hand the ball was still doing quite a lot. Conditions were very different to what they are used to in the UAE where pitches are flat, dry and they have to defend balls at the stumps. Here the ball was zipping around in the channel outside off stump. What did they do? They left the ball and waited for the right ball to score off.

They never chased the ball like England. They played it late, under their eyes. They must have had a poster up in the changing room reminding them that in England in May you play basic Test cricket: bowl full to challenge the batsmen and when you bat occupy the crease and be patient.

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England did the complete opposite. With bat in hand they went chasing the ball trying to score at three and a half runs an over. When they got the ball in hand, they bowled short, changed tactics too soon and were not prepared to be patient.

Their fielding unit was all over the place, dropping balls and constant personnel changes in different positions. Cook was at short leg then it was Root. Anderson was at third slip then first slip. There was no continuity from England to make you believe they are well-drilled and well-coached.

The worry for England is that in their last 30 Tests they have been a 100 or less for four wickets 25 times in 53 innings. So England are 100 for four pretty much 50 per cent of the time which is absolutely remarkable with the talent in that team.

This England team want to be a cool, aggressive, attacking side. But they have to go back to basics. Be difficult to beat.

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Don’t be drawn into the era of IPL, T20, crash, bang, wallop. Don’t be scared to be boring and bat a session for 20 runs. You do not have to be that ultra-aggressive team.

Joe chased the game a bit with his tactics. I made many mistakes trying to be funky but in English conditions you can be boring and stick to basics because with the Duke ball in England there will always be something to work with.

Personnel changes in the batting do not matter. We have had players coming and going for three years. It has gone beyond just changing the opening batsman. It will not make any difference unless we change the mindset of the whole group. They are trying to play the extravagant game before doing the basics.

They are trying to build a house by putting the roof on first. Build the base first then you can start being funky, but for a long time they have not been willing to put in the ground work.

It takes a brave and strong mind to be boring because the risk is you might get out cheaply having worked hard and batted for a long time without a number next to your name. These players always want a number by their name quickly. They are not trusting their method to bat for a long period of time but successful Test teams do the basic, boring things really well.

That great Aussie team did the basics brilliantly. I want England to be boring.

Cricket corruption will never go away, but must not be brushed aside

I watched the Al Jazeera documentary “Cricket’s Match fixers’ and it was very sad to see cricket dragged through yet another fixing scandal. We have seen this before and it is a fact that cricket corruption will never go away.

This time it cannot be brushed aside. The England & Wales Cricket Board and International Cricket Council have got to thoroughly investigate everything that was alleged.

It seems outrageous and I was flabbergasted to hear England mentioned in a fixing scandal but it would be completely wrong if the boards did not look into it properly.

I hope that it is all a load of rubbish but we have to get to the bottom of it for the sake of the reputation of English cricket. I’m sure England are innocent and they deserve to have their names cleared publicly if that is the case. We cannot have the mentality that we are England and do not do those kinds of things but are happy to moralise or and throw the book at those nations that have been caught up in fixing in the past.

What concerns me is that whatever the fixer predicted would happen in two matches came true. That is amazing when you think of the number of uncontrollables in a 10 over session in a Test match. For it to happen on two occasions to the letter, or at least the programme claimed that was the case, is proof we cannot just laugh it off and say it is pathetic.

There will always be people out there trying to corrupt cricket matches because of the massive sums of money involved in India. The illegal betting market in India is completely alien world to most of us but we know the powerful, mafia gangs involved will try anything to get an edge. Any inside information is a licence to print money.

It is just very sad that we are still talking about corruption. Players are so well-rewarded these days it is hard to understand if and why they are looking to make more money. It is just greed.

I really believe the best way to stop it happening is to set the precedent and ban someone for life if they are involved in fixing, regardless of their age or how much money was involved. It might just make someone stop and ask themselves if is it worth it.