One man band would keep everything in tune

quoted out of context -- please make that clear.''

It was just another minor public-relations blip during a tour on which

disaster has been the ever-present twelfth man.

England have a tour manager who is invisible, a team manager who is

not even told when a replacement has been summoned from home, a chairman

of selectors who is on holiday in Spain.

Atherton has not had his sorrows to seek. Yet he has touched upon a

fundamental question which affects almost all sports, namely, who should

choose the team?

Cricket is one of the few remaining games where the captain has to

make vital decisions -- who bowls, which field will be set, when to

declare. Is there anyone better qualified to say which players should

take the field? Or is it unfair to place so much responsibility in the

hands of one man? What if he is not playing well -- would he drop

himself?

That situation arose twice on British Lions rugby tours. A Scot,

Michael Campbell-Lamerton, then skipper of the 1966 Lions in Australia

and New Zealand, left himself out, after consultation with the team

management, of a Test match.

A later Lions' captain, Ciaran Fitzgerald of Ireland, pointedly

declined to do the same when the vast majority of observers considered

he was an inferior hooker to Scotland's Colin Deans. But should either

player have been put in that position? I think not.

To me, the notion that players should also be selectors is absurd. By

all means let their views be sought, but to require them to pass

judgement on club-mates, friends, sometimes even relatives, is asking

far too much.

Nor am I a great fan of selection committees. The late, great Jimmy

Wardhaugh used to amuse with his tale of how, having been chosen to play

for Scotland, he was given personal instruction by one of the selectors,

a butcher from Montrose, as I recall, on how to take a throw-in.

Ian McLauchlan swears that, after he was dropped from the Scottish

international rugby team, all five selectors solemnly assured him they

had voted for his inclusion.

We will learn this afternoon the XV who will be wearing the Scottish

jerseys against Canada a week on Saturday, and will be assured, no

doubt, that every selection was unanimous. Perhaps, but it would be a

lot easier to believe if it was the team manager's sole responsibility.

For that is what I believe is the correct method. The football

authorities have got it right -- Craig Brown, Terry Venables, Jack

Charlton have been chosen to produce successful sides, and they have to

be allowed to choose them.

English cricket has far too many chiefs, but no commander. If Raymond

Illingworth is to play that role he must be given the responsibility of

selecting the side which takes the field.

In an amateur sport like rugby, do different criteria apply? Well, let

us not argue the ''amateur'' label, but rather look at what is happening

in the real world. Does anyone other than Jack Rowell pick the England

side? Does Ian McGeechan have control of team selection at Northampton?

Of course he does.

These men will listen to advice, they will have their spies in all the

leading clubs up and down the country, they will talk to the coaches and

maybe even to the players but ultimately the buck will stop with them.

Just as soccer dispensed with the services of the butcher and the

baker so, too, will international rugby. We are moving towards a

professional team manager charged with putting the side he wants into

action.

I am happy to live with that prospect. One singer, one song.

* GOING to the dogs on a Sunday would once have been considered the

ultimate sin. Yet I have no qualms about releasing the hare on the

Sabbath.

Sunday horseracing will be with us soon on a regular basis, and I

suspect rugby will consider staging some games on that day, too. This

already happens in France.

Of course there must be consideration given to those who have

religious objections to taking part. But it is a hardly logical to

insist that players must take part in Sunday training sessions yet say

it is immoral to play an actual match.