Moores gets tough

14 April 2012

Peter Moores interrupted the holiday plans of England's underachieving players by ordering them to Loughborough on Monday for fitness assessments and an early get-together.

The new England coach put down a marker by telling the centrally contracted players to make their way to the National Academy just a week after they arrived back from their woeful World Cup.

An ECB spokesman said: "We only have a limited amount of time before the first Test, so this was an opportunity for the players to meet Peter Moores formally and undergo some fitness tests. It's a standard get-together for this time of year."

Even so, Moores, known as a disciplinarian when coaching Sussex, has wasted no time in showing the players who their new boss is.

Once the first Test starts against the West Indies at Lord's on May 17, the players will have little or no time off until after the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September and the one-day section of their trip to Sri Lanka, which follows.

At least they will be better prepared than the West Indies who, as yet, have no captain, coach or team.

Scroll down to read more:

Great coach: Tom Cartwright, who taught Ian Botham how to swing a cricket ball, passed away last night

The players are in dispute over tour contracts while the board are split over who should replace Brian Lara as captain after his decision to jump before he was pushed.

Meanwhile, English cricket was in mourning on Monday night after the death of the man who taught Ian Botham to swing a cricket ball.

Tom Cartwright, who was Botham's coach at Millfield School, passed away after a long battle to recover from a heart attack.

England's greatest allrounder led the tributes to the 71-year-old, saying: "Tom taught me so much about swing bowling. He had a huge influence on me when I was starting out.

"But it wasn't only what he did for me, it was what he did for countless others like me.

"While I knew he had been ill for some time, this news has still come as a shock to me."

Coventry-born Cartwright played for Warwickshire, Somerset and Glamorgan and played five Tests for England as an all-rounder.

He took 1,536 first-class wickets and scored 13,710 runs, with a top score of 210.

It was his withdrawal with injury from England's tour to South Africa in 1968 that led to the selection of Basil D'Oliveira and the affair that resulted in the nation's ban from world cricket.

After retiring, Cartwright settled in Wales where he spent 30 years as a coach. He was still involved with the Wales Under 16 side when he fell ill in March.

Neal Abberley, chairman of Warwickshire Old Cricketers' Association and a former county team-mate, said: "He was a lovely man with a great, dry sense of humour."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in