As Roland-Jones showed us, it’s rotation that makes the sporting world go round | Rob Smyth

England’s cricket selectors need to follow Alex Ferguson, whose tinkering helped him get the best out of his Manchester United stars on the big occasions

In Fight Club, his incendiary rumination on the existential thrill of being punched in the gob, David Fincher does a spectacular job of skewering the “Ikea nesting instinct” that lives in most of us. One quote has always stayed in the Spin’s mind. After his condo is burned down – by himself, the daft bugger, but he doesn’t know that yet – Ed Norton’s character tells Brad Pitt: “When you buy furniture, you tell yourself: ‘That’s it, that’s the last sofa I’m gonna need. Whatever else happens, I’ve got that sofa problem handled.’”

Cricket teams are constructed in a similar way. We have the same nesting instinct, to build a team piece by piece. It came to mind again after Toby Roland-Jones’s wonderful debut at The Oval. Whatever else happens, England have got that backup third-seamer problem handled.

Related: Moeen Ali: ‘If it wasn’t for cricket I don’t know what I’d be doing now’

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