Peter Moores: Cricket's Brian Ashton

English sport is once again undergoing a painful piece of 'deja vu', as it allows one or two results to blind the inherent failings of one of national teams.

Cast your minds back to last September and England's pool stage defeat to South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. No more than two people were brave enough to say they honestly believed that Brian Ashton should stay on as coach. The play was poor, one dimentional and had far too many hallmarks of the good old days.

Yet two low quality wins in the knockout stages against Australia and a French team who cracked under home pressure and Ashton was ready to be hailed as a national hero. Only four months later, after the hangover had well and truly worn off during another poor Six Nations campagin, Ashton was forced to fall on his sword.

Now it's English cricket which is suffering. Their victory over New Zealand at Old Trafford last week has clouded the issue that ever since Peter Moores took charge, his team has been incredibly inconsistent. 

The West Indies were swept aside in four tests before losing the one-day series. Jelly Bean-gate marred a poor test series which ended in defeat to India before they won the decider of an up and down One-Day series.

The same pattern of highs and lows followed in the Winter tours to Sri Lanka and New Zealand, while the 'specialst' Twenty20 team never got going in South Africa before a tame exit in the Super Eights.

The biggest problem is that no player has had a concerted run of form. Cook, Bell, Vaughan and Pietersen have all made hundreds over the past year, but none of them have done it consistently. Pietersen, more worringly, has hidden from his naturally aggressive game as England's run rate has dropped to levels not seen since they stopped wearing the MCC's colours on overseas tours.

Even the inconsistent James Anderson has become more variable than a day's safe count, while his old teammate Matthew Hoggard, England's most consistent bowler over recent years, watches only on a television screen. 

So what's changed? Barring Tim Ambrose and the always impressive Stuart Broad, all of the current team had played test cricket before the Moores era (Sidebottom admittedly briefly). The captaincy has not changed since 2003.

The only variable is the coach and his setup.

What Moores is preaching to his chosen few is a question that should be looked at. As pointed out in another interesting article, Matt Prior is a having a fine time this season for Sussex. Ravi Bopara, who underperformed in Sri Lanka while in the test team, is continuing to make headlines and even the guessing games' favourite bowler, Steve Harmison, is regularly taking wickets for Durham.

From my point of view, there can only be two solutions. The first is that there really is a big gulf between Test and County cricket and Justin Langer is just taking everyone for a ride. Whatever is being said by the coaches at the top level is clouding the minds of the players. After all, so many players cannot be having success after looking so out of place like some of the current crop do.

Time after time they are failing to even look like taking the initative and taking the attack to the opposition. Too many of the recent turnarounds against New Zealand are coming after being on the back foot.

Better teams such as Australia and South Africa will not give that opportunity. 

I was never the biggest fan of Moores, but there has to come a time when his methods are seriously looked at. With a year to go to the Ashes, the national setup cannot afford to be blinded like the RFU were with Brian Ashton.

Otherwise, they'll be heading down the road of telling Paul Collingwood that while he's good enough to lead his country in the limited overs form of the game, he has no place in the Test arena and is therefore not good enough to lead his country.

That would demolish England's foundation for building a successful team in any of the future forms of the game.