County cricket is the best training ground available

In a conversation Nasser Hussain had with Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special during the lunch interval of the Chelsea and Gloucester final at Lord's on Saturday, it came out, inadvertently, how little the effects of issuing England's main players with central contracts has been thought through. In theory, it is an admirable idea, but one can only wonder if its main advocates are not using it with counter-productive results.

Hussain, himself, is obsessed with what he considers to be the amount of cricket in which England's leading players are being asked to take part. Bewilderment, boredom and burn-out become the natural bedfellows of the hectic mêlée which exists when the domestic and international programmes are mixed together.

Hussain sometimes gives the impression of being a tortured soul. Of course, the demands upon him are huge, especially as England's international commitments have, like those of all the other countries, enormously increased. Seven home Test Matches and seven one-day internationals this season will be followed by the ICC Trophy in Colombo which begins in 10 days' time, the tour to Australia, perhaps the toughest of all, and then two months in South Africa for the World Cup.

The captain is on the bridge all the time, and not only when a match is in progress. He is in contact with his players, he and the coach, Duncan Fletcher, have to try and sort out their cricketing problems and to learn how best to handle each individual as a human being. Both are extremely good at this.

Then there is the Gough and Caddick problem of trying to keep their peckers up when they are off games, to say nothing of the task of persuading Caddick to adjust his length and line when conditions demand it, and occasionally to look as if he is enjoying himself. The dilemma that faces Graham Thorpe also looms large in the captain's mind. They are the best of friends and while Hussain would like Thorpe in Australia he understands that his senior batsman's children must come first. He tries to offer help and encouragement on the telephone.

These and hundreds of other things never allow Hussain's mind a moment's rest and it is enormously to his credit that he faces them all head on. He does not shirk any duty and, as a consequence, is greatly respected and liked by his players. With all this going on, to spend four days playing for Essex at Chelmsford or wherever must seem a colossal irrelevance. It is too, provided that he is scoring runs which, at present, he is.

Times are forever changing. Last Tuesday Essex played a day/night match against Gloucestershire at Colchester under the best lights I have seen in England. When Graham Gooch was captain of England, nothing would have prevented him from playing that evening at Castle Park even though a Test match had ended only the day before. Hussain was nowhere to be seen.

A central contract is the answer for Hussain himself. It gives him the freedom and the moments of relaxation he so badly needs. The problems of these contracts were starkly revealed when he and Agnew discussed England's wayward bowling on the first two days of the recent Headingley Test Match.

Andrew Caddick, Andrew Flintoff and Alex Tudor all naturally bang the ball in a little bit short of a length. The conditions at Headingley were such, with the ball swinging and seaming, that these bowlers needed to keep to a fuller length on the line of the off stump and make the batsmen play. As it was, they were unable to adjust and Hussain speculated on air that he may have set the wrong fields or given his bowlers duff instructions.

He agreed that the majority of Test pitches in England were becoming more and more sub-continental in their behaviour, where the need was to bang the ball in short outside the off stump. They had done this admirably at Lord's and for most of the time at Trent Bridge. Now, at Headingley, the conditions required a new approach and the bowlers were unable to do what was needed.

Strangely and significantly, Hussain rejected the suggestion that what was needed for the bowlers to widen their armoury was to go back to county cricket and practice so that they become more versatile. He felt that rest was more important which must be bunkum for the only way in which a bowler, or anyone else, is going to perfect his art is to practice it in the middle where it counts.

Caddick who, interestingly, has not taken a single wicket in three Lord's cup finals, Flintoff and Tudor badly need the much derided County Championship to hone their skills afresh. If they do not play for their counties, where will they find meaningful practice? Of course, after seven one-day internationals and with a Test series coming up, a week's rest may be exactly what the doctor ordered. But county cricket must not be avoided at all costs and must still be used, even by those at the top, for it is the best available training ground. Making runs and taking wickets is seldom bad for morale.