What does Duncan Fletcher actually do?

Some years ago, when the last Conservative government was limping towards defeat, someone published a book called 101 Uses for a John Major. It was cruel and fairly funny, the premise being that since he couldn’t run his party, there must be some other way he could be employed. Perhaps an Indian publisher is considering a new version after the country wilted in the Test series this summer: 101 Uses for a Duncan Fletcher.

What does the India coach actually do? He called his memoirs Behind the Shades, a vain and self-regarding title, but quite what has been going on behind those shades this summer has been a bit of a mystery. Fletcher has sat there impassively, chewing slightly, inscrutable behind his dark glasses — as Wodehouse might have said, has anyone been less scruted than Fletcher? — watching allegedly the best 11 sportsmen in a country of a billion play like they had never heard of Test cricket.