The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Butcher's injury, a cause for concern

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Butcher's injury, a cause for concern

By Ted Corbett

LONDON, JULY 18. After winning six of its last seven Tests and with all its players as fit as any English professional cricketer can expect to be halfway through the summer, England has chosen its regular team for the opening match of the four-Test series against West Indies at Lord's starting on Thursday.

England's main doubts concern Mark Butcher who strained his thigh in the high-speed, all-action Twenty-20 competition playing for Surrey — the holder which has never been beaten in this new form of the game — but who believes he will be fit to bat No. 3 by Thursday. The selectors have, cautiously, chosen Robert Key as his understudy.

Key was not a success in the recent triangular series in which England failed to reach the final and Butcher was deemed unfit to play one-day cricket for reasons which escape those of us who admire his strokeplay, his ability to move the ball round the park in the manner of Darren Lehmann, Graham Thorpe and Arjuna Ranatunga, and his cricket intelligence.

But with such a strong basic team England ought to get the better of West Indies, which is on the upward march but still too full of immature cricketers to pose a threat to a winning team.

As usual England has its problems. As he demonstrated time and again at Bristol in the semifinal of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy on Saturday, Michael Vaughan, the captain, lacks any sort of form. He mistimed, misjudged and misunderstood line and length and his laboured 30 off 69 balls was an embarrassment.

In the old days he would have been sent off to Yorkshire Colts to score an easy century, return to confidence and head straight back to the top of the averages. But in the hurry-scurry of modern international cricket there is no time for such obvious remedies and Vaughan will have to take his practice in the middle at Lord's against Fidel Edwards and Tino Best, two bowlers so quick that they can destroy a batsman and his reputation in a single delivery.

There are also worries about Andrew Flintoff's ability to bowl his share of overs after a long spell of rest with an ankle injury and the form of Simon Jones who missed two of the three New Zealand Tests with pain in his left foot and has played only a couple of matches since, although he appeared to have fully recovered when taking wickets for MCC against West Indies at Arundel last week.

Eyes will also be focussed on Geraint Jones' wicket-keeping. Since being elevated to the No. 1 spot for the Antigua Test at the end of the West Indies tour, he has dropped little and allowed few byes, but he will always be compared with the immaculate Chris Read of Nottinghamshire. Read has begun to score runs again so that if Jones lets the side down, as his critics suggest he will inevitably, there may still be a new chance for this gifted young 'keeper.

The squad: Michael Vaughan (capt.), Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Mark Butcher, Graham Thorpe, Andrew Flintoff, Geraint Jones, Ashley Giles, Simon Jones, Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison, James Anderson and Robert Key.

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