Once they arrive, England play their opening match on 29 October at Lilac Hill. The first Test in Brisbane follows three weeks later, after which two of the remaining Tests (the second and the fifth) are back to back. It is barely enough time to sweep up the autumn leaves let alone the Ashes, which is no doubt what the England captain will be putting on his immigration form under the “Purpose of Trip” section. MODERN TEST cricketers do not have time for a close season anymore. For the England team who set off from Heathrow for Australia at noon today, only four weeks have separated the end of a hectic summer and their winter tour. His side face South Africa on Sunday and he admitted: “We have had a short period of time to try and get things going, but the two practice matches will help and in between we will practice hard to get a good team spirit going.”The squad is young and very keen and what you sometimes lack in experience you can make up for with enthusiasm.”Andrew Symonds, Australia’s English-born ex-Gloucestershire batsman, yesterday replaced the injured Tom Moody in his country’s squad for the ICC Trophy tournament in Bangladesh.Moody was forced to withdraw after aggravating a knee injury suffered during the Commonwealth Games tournament in Kuala Lumpur.Symonds will make his international debut in the limited overs competition – a mini-World Cup involving all nine Test-playing nations – which gets under way in Dhaka on Saturday.Symonds, who hit four Sheffield Shield centuries last season, will join other squad members Adam Gilchrist, Brendon Julian and Damien Martyn on a flight on Sunday immediately after the final day of the Queensland v West Australia Sheffield Shield match.AUSTRALIA SQUAD: S R Waugh (capt), M E Waugh, M G Bevan, D W Fleming, A C Gilchrist, B P Julian, M S Kasprowicz, D S Lehmann, D R Martyn , G D McGrath, R T Ponting, G R Robertson, A Symonds, B Young.. England were on the 1994 Ashes tour when Murray Goodwin twice went past the half-century mark for Western Australia in Perth after being thrown in at the deep end.

Now Goodwin, born in Zimbabwe but brought up Down Under, wants to show the kind of form he has produced in Test cricket – an average of 55 since his debut in January – against Adam Hollioake’s one-day side.
Goodwin, who also averages 45 in limited-overs internationals, said: “It was a great feeling to make my debut against an international team and face bowlers like Devon Malcolm, Phil DeFreitas, Martin McCague and Joey Benjamin.”Hollioake is desperate to play today after the last two scheduled practice sessions at the Bangabandhu National Stadium yesterday were washed out. ENGLAND WILL face a player who scored two 50s on his first- class debut in his only previous appearance against them when they take on Zimbabwe in a Wills International Cup warm- up match today. The former in each case cannot be reviled or punished too severely, the latter is a union player and therefore a decent sort.New professional rugby union? At its heart it remains the bully, bitterly contemptible of anyone who dares criticise it and wholly unaware of its own ugliness.JOHN HULLYRoyston,Herts. Even were we to accept the farcical and wrong notion that union invented this refereeing technology, no one could accept any such lecture from the sport whose own laws are broken throughout every match with impunity, as referees ignore everything they even manage to see in order to “let the game flow”.No sport can lecture others on orderly conduct, which thinks that a kick to the head can be legitimate, or which punishes a player for biting a chunk out of an opponent’s face by lauding his character, banning him for the closed season, and cheering his return.How educational to compare reactions to Mike Tyson and Kevin Yates, or Paolo Di Canio and Neil Back.

And with more delicious irony, Graham Dawe (“How Change Can make Laws an Asset,” 27 September) went on to explain how any number of laws and their interpretations in union should be changed. Or perhaps like Robinson and Paul before them, Sullivan, Harris and Sailor will only be vilified as failures after they return to league.As for those very laws, the Independent on Sunday felt bound to lecture the world on the example of union law-giving and refereeing. You praise Iestyn Harris’s skills, but fear union is too technical for him So many laws. So much patronising drivel.It is clear to those of us not in the fold, (and not hopeful of coaching Wales) that if the morass of union laws prevents a talented player from showing his rugby skills then the laws are wrong. Or perhaps, compared to waiting for Mike Catt’s erratic lobs, running on to Andrew Farrell’s fast, precision passing gives a player room to move and play. Yes, Jonathan, all the people you played league with and those of us who watched you are far too poorly educated or intelligent to understand union laws. In the midst of the mountains of union verbiage, growing in inverse proportion to the crowds at Allied Dunbar Premiership matches, sit all the old prejudices.
How wonderful is the irony of the Saracens’ coach, denigrating the brief union careers of Henry Paul and Jason Robinson while lauding his choice centre pairing of Scott Gibbs (formerly of St Helens) and Allen Bateman (Warrington and Cronulla) before selling his next home fixture with the possible appearance of Barrie-Jon Mather, (very briefly and rather unsuccessfully of Wigan, Perth and Castleford).Even Jonathan Davies has obviously been back in the fold long enough to lose perspective, trotting out the official union line that Anthony Sullivan might succeed because playing on the union wing will not be too technical for him.

In this, as in so many areas, football has much to learn from other sports. Regrettably, the game’s administrators usually act as if they know it all

KEITH DAVIES
Romsey,Hampshire. Sir: How very revealing is the rugby union writers’ excitement at the possible arrivals of the ageing Anthony Sullivan at Cardiff and the part-time Wendell Sailor at Leeds. Not so very long ago, these same union hacks would have it that rugby league could produce no stars of its own

Yet union attitudes have not really changed. Sir: The collarless, tight- fitting shirts and short shorts of rugby league players are designed to to make it difficult to grab the clothing even though it is quite legal in the game. The “fashionable” baggy shirts and shorts of the footballer are an invitation which defenders find it difficult to resist.