Poor starts remain England's bane

Port of Spain, Trinidad: Nothing galls more than losing a Test series where you have made nearly all of the running, but England are finally waking up to the inconvenient truth that they are probably the worst starters in world cricket.

As they have done in six of their past seven Test series overseas, England lost the opening match of the series, after they were scuttled for 51 in Jamaica, and it cost them.

Thereafter, groundsmen around the Caribbean rolled all life out of the pitches and while Andrew Strauss's team produced some fine cricket in the remaining three games, they failed to get back on level terms.

"The lesson we must learn is that we need to start series well," said Andy Flower, the assistant coach. "It was Steve Waugh who said you must get the first punch in against the opposition. We haven't won the first game in a series for a long time and have often lost it so we've got to do something about it."

Actually, you have to go back to Port Elizabeth in 2004 to find when England last won the opening skirmish of series, home or away, against proper opponents, a whopping 16 series ago.

One obvious cure would be to have more practice matches but there is so much cricket being fitted into the calendar (dates for the Champions Trophy in South Africa and the World Twenty20 have just been announced and both cut across the English season), it is just not feasible.

On this tour, there were two warm-up games but only one had anything approaching the intensity of international cricket. "It cannot be a coincidence after such a long time," Flower said. "Maybe it has something to do with the way we treat the period between series. But Strauss and those in charge of strategy will have to try to come up with something to make sure it doesn't happen in the future."

The flux England found themselves in after losing their captain and coach over the new year might have been a contributory factor had Strauss and Flower not made such a good fist of galvanising the team. The England and Wales Cricket Board will appoint a new director of cricket immediately after the one-day series here has finished but if they wish for symbiosis between captain and their man, they need look no further than Flower.

That relationship is crucial for team policy and unity. So far, it has proved to be strong and unambiguous in the messages it sends out to players as Ian Bell and Steve Harmison, both dropped from the side for underperforming, have found out.

Both are fair and honest and no player can expect more from their leaders than that.

With the batsmen, especially Strauss, making hay, what they need now, as a matter of urgency, is to find or develop a bowler with that special spark, who can take wickets in clusters. James Anderson and Graeme Swann have been the picks with Andrew Flintoff, back now for the one-day series, also deserving of praise until a hip injury curtailed his series.

Swann bowled himself into the team's top spinning slot ahead of Monty Panesar but an operation on his troublesome right elbow this week in Minneapolis may alter that. Spin is all about precision and an operation can alter that.

The umpire review system should be about precision too, but ended up a mess with the TV umpire making judgments from ambiguous replays.

On such small things do big matters hang, which may be why Strauss is keen for referrals to be consigned to the same dustbin as the cat's cradle and the pink protector.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009