Cricket: Butcher delights the few

Left-hander's 150 stakes a firm claim for Ashes inclusion as England A batsmen pile on the runs

England A 453-4 dec

The Rest 73-2

It is astonishing to contemplate that the low-key proceedings enacted at Edgbaston yesterday may have a significant bearing on the future of English cricket. In a sepulchral atmosphere which was frequently, if blamelessly, matched by the play, the cream of the nation's youth competed to show that they have what it takes for the grander stage.

They did so on a cold, grey day before spectators whose numbers it would be an exaggeration to call a smattering. If the number of England selectors and other assorted coaches and officials, including Lord MacLaurin, the new supremo of English cricket, did not outnumber the crowd it must have been a close-run thing in the morning. The presence of the bigwigs indicated the strange importance of the occasion. Reputations might not have been at stake but they could advance or recede meaningfully.

The two that advanced were primarily those of Mark Butcher, who took his score to 153, and the A team's combative captain Adam Hollioake, with a half- century on extremely shrewd pacing. Alex Tudor, the 19-year-old Surrey fast bowler, probably came in to the advanced category as well but Simon Brown, the worthy Durham left-arm bowler, sadly went in to the other one. It was neither a day nor a pitch for bowlers but there are ways of minimising the damage.

David Graveney, the chairman, and his fellow selectors Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting, who were also present, will have noted what they saw although the prime purpose of their gathering was to plot strategy for the forthcoming Ashes series.

Graveney confirmed that the captain, Mike Atherton, also in attendance, will be on the panel without a vote which "will improve his relationships with the team" but the consensual procedure of selection is fundamentally unchanged. The three wise men discussed the type of pictures on which England might favour meeting Australia but he would not reveal the outcome for fear "of giving clues to the opposition". Videos of Shane Warne are even now being urgently sought for swift digestion.

While all this was going on England A, with due diligence and application as well as intermittent sparkle, continued to make a nonsense of the decision to put them in on Friday. They took their total relentlessly past 400 and on to 453 half an hour before tea and lost only two further wickets.

It is surely now only a matter of time before Butcher represents the full England side in a Test and that may be as early 5 June back here at Edgbaston. The stroke with which he opened his account yesterday, an off-driven four, bore the stamp of a player in exemplary form, a commodity which appears not to have deserted him for at least 12 months. He batted for slightly more than six hours, struck 22 fours and exhibited the concentration needed on a higher plane.

While Nick Knight, his finger badly broken but on the mend, is the left- handed opener in possession, Butcher still provides a conundrum. The time to select him is when he is at the top of his game, not, as has happened to others in the past, when he has entered an indifferent run - positively not the right way to begin a Test career against Australia.

When he was out, misjudging a sweep, Hollioake's half- century - he batted for 167 minutes - looked inevitable. Apart from some sibling sparring when his brother Ben bowled, he was admirable in playing the ball on its merits. Anthony McGrath scored 46 without quite dispelling the impression of a schoolboy eager to impress his teachers.

It was once more not a day for bowling on this Birmingham featherbed, so much more friendly than the imaginative pitches which have seen Test matches swiftly conclude here for the past two years. Tudor, in only his sixth first-class match (he had never bowled more than 15 overs in a day before), managed much promise, not least because of a willingness to bowl a full length.

Glen Chapple removed the Rest's Jason Laney with one which straightened and later accounted for Chris Adams but there was not much else in it for bowling. Would that batting were to be so comfortable for English players early in June.