GEOFF Boycott, the human equivalent of Marmite, says what he likes and he likes what he says.

But, for me, he got it spot on with his views on the Indian Premier League.

In the wake of the latest one-day disaster against India, Lancastrian Andrew Flintoff said that England players needed to play in the IPL to enable them to develop as cricketers.

"It is possibly now an important development in a player's life," said Flintoff.

"It's something I think our players would be keen to do. We've got to expand our game a little bit. The basics are there, we just need to turn it up a notch.

"India are very well-drilled and confident coming into this series and we've been pretty much out-played in each department."

Enter Boycott, stage left.

Boycott said: "I'd stop making excuses. The England players would like to play in (the IPL) because they want to earn a lot of money, but let's not pretend that's the reason they're not doing well in India."

Precisely.

If the players were taking part for free, there wouldn't be the clamber to play in the tournament.

But the fact that Flintoff would be one of the most desirable, and there for most highly-paid, players then it's no surprise he's keen to play in the competition.

But just be honest about it. He wants to cash in and that's fair enough.

But don't trot out the tired old line that it will somehow transform England's fortunes.

All the money in the world couldn't do that, as the laughable Stanford Series showed.