Headingley horror show exposes fatal flaws in Vaughan’s vaunted side

The danger is that Stuart Broad's exhilarating hitting may mask the inadequacies in woeful capitulation at Headingley.

The reality is that they must solve a myriad of puzzles before they announce their team on Saturday for next week's third npower Test.

This was a terrible display from England and no amount of praise for the latest example of Broad's burgeoning batting ability can camouflage that.

Stuart Broad continued to impress with the bat

Even this most promising of English cricketers faces an anxious wait to see whether he will play in a game at Edgbaston that England must win. He is, after all, in the team to take wickets.

The brutal truth is that, with this 10-wicket defeat in four days, England are facing a worrying reality check on where they stand in the world game.

They have beaten only New Zealand in Test cricket in the last year and if they cannot hit back in the last two matches that follow in this series they will be a world away from launching a credible Ashes challenge next year.

This was a one-sided affair from start to finish. And when analysing where they go from here, England's selection panel face the biggest test of their capabilities since they came together under the chairmanship of Geoff Miller earlier this year.

They must start by acknowledging that they got two major decisions hopelessly wrong before this second Test even started.

There have been many horses-for-courses selections at this most distinctive ground but, in calling up Darren Pattinson after only 11 first-class games, the selectors not only backed an ageing nag from overseas but insulted the group of fast bowlers, young and experienced, staking their claims in the county game.

It is not Pattinson's fault that he accepted the unlikely request to report to Leeds late last Thursday, even if he does consider himself to be an Australian, but it is an indictment of a system in which England invest so heavily and clearly damaged the dynamic of the home dressing-room.

The players were asked to embrace a complete stranger instead of one of their own in Paul Collingwood, and the result was a destruction of the unity gained from six unchanged teams.

Yes, the England team is not a closed shop but this left-field pick just felt horribly wrong from the start. Then there was the question of batting Tim Ambrose at six. If England wanted to give the latest victim of the wicketkeeper-batsman lottery enough rope to hang himself then his loose waft outside off-stump yesterday was the noose being tightened.

Should they stick to their stated intention of keeping Flintoff at seven, then Matt Prior must return next week at six. True, there was a little more application from England yesterday and they even looked as though they might take the game into a fifth day during a Broad inspired last-wicket stand of 61 but the truth was that the Headingley wicket remained largely blameless in their demise.

Ouch: James Anderson is struck on the jaw from South African seamer Dale Steyn

Only Jimmy Anderson, after a heroic display as nightwatchman to follow his performance as England's best bowler here, can really escape criticism. While he kept Alastair Cook company until 15 minutes before lunch, England could have been allowed to dream that they may yet have got out of this self-induced cock-up.

Yet, once he was struck on the wrist and head by successive Dale Steyn deliveries, injuries which required 10 minutes of treatment, Anderson's departure was only a matter of time and it duly came an over later, even though he was still commendably getting behind the ball.

What to say about Kevin Pietersen? On the face of it a six-minute, five-ball stay comprising 13 runs was complete lunacy given the situation in which England found themselves.

Yet it is often forgotten that Pietersen is always a nervous starter, is looking in prime form, and is at his best when he plays in his own commanding, aggressive manner.

Better to leave him to do it his way in the knowledge that he is a one-off, a unique talent who will come off far more often that not. The irony is that if he had looked to smack the ball that dismissed him from Jacques Kallis, rather than try to leave it, he would probably have been fine.

We said Ian Bell had grown up at Lord's, had become a man in cricketing terms after a truly mature 199. Well, he gave it away to an awful shot again here, even if it did take a great catch from AB de Villiers to dislodge him. Infuriatingly, the jury may have to go out again.

Cook, the one batsman who guarantees a bit of old-fashioned adhesiveness, did the hard work in getting to 60 but fell softly to one from Kallis that may have stopped on him before Flintoff, Ambrose and mainly Broad delayed the inevitable with some pleasing shots once the pressure was off.

Graeme Smith looked as though he wanted the match to go to a fifth day when he persisted in bowling the non-spinning left-arm spinner Paul Harris but eventually Morne Morkel ended the crowd's fun when he took out Pattinson's off-stump leaving South Africa only nine runs to win.

The winning run came off what will probably turn out to be Pattinson's last ball in Test cricket, his appearance going down as one of those Headingley moments of selectorial madness that we thought belonged to a different era.

South Africa have taken the lead in each of their three series in England since readmission and failed to win any of them.

For England to continue that trend they must pray Ryan Sidebottom is fit next week and call for Prior and one of either Steve Harmison or Simon Jones. Decisive action is required to replace the muddled thinking which cost them so dearly here.