Allan Donald stays on with England

Anyone else delighted about this? Allan Donald's staying on as England's bowling coach.

Donald's a man who knows how to take the odd Test wicket having achieved the feat 330 times. We don't believe that a successful playing career necessarily adds up to a coaching qualification in itself, but if someone's been as successful as Allan Donald has, you can bet that they've put at least a little bit of thought into their endeavours.

All we've got to go off is that at the start of the Test series against the West Indies - when Donald first joined up with England's bowlers - both Steve Harmison and Liam Plunkett were experiencing a rather public meltdown.

At the end of the Test series, Harmison, having steadily improved, delivered his best spell of bowling in perhaps years. Plunkett was summarily removed from Test cricket for humane reasons, but bowled with much greater discipline in the first one-day international.

It's hard to quantify, but Donald at least appears to be having an impact and England's bowlers seem to like, respect and trust him.

Besides, as far as the ECB are concerned; to lose one bowling coach may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose another looks like carelessness.