England should hide Trescothick behind the big guns

Like parents with twins on a birthday, the England and Wales Cricket Board is treating Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart with scrupulous fairness on the occasion of their 100th Tests tomorrow. Not only will they both be presented with some suitable memento, but they will both be required to play with one hand tied behind their back.

Like parents with twins on a birthday, the England and Wales Cricket Board is treating Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart with scrupulous fairness on the occasion of their 100th Tests tomorrow. Not only will they both be presented with some suitable memento, but they will both be required to play with one hand tied behind their back.

For Stewart, it is the familiar handicap, which he has put up with 48 times before, of having to keep wicket. He thinks he should not have to do it, Atherton thinks he should not have to do it, but, for Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain, the chance to field a fifth bowler (who never takes any wickets) is somehow more alluring than the opportunity to field a free-hitting opening batsman who averages 47 in Tests when not keeping wicket. In the many fine tributes paid to Atherton and Stewart in the past few days, the one really ill-informed remark was the suggestion that Stewart had been the best all-rounder of the past decade. Australia's Adam Gilchrist, as well as being a slightly better keeper, has the highest Test average of any current player - 57.

I have bored for England on this theme around 100 times, so let us move swiftly on to Atherton, whose predicament is one he has only had to deal with 11 times in Tests, not 48: having a new opening partner. When they announced the team nine days ago, England went out of their way to say that Marcus Trescothick would open the batting.

Was Atherton consulted about this? Almost certainly not. In the course of a round-table discussion in one of the Sunday papers, he was asked whether he felt Trescothick was an opener or a middle-order batsman.

"I've hardly seen him," said Atherton, who is as honest as his best innings are long. Hussain, who was there too, said: "I hope he's an opener because that's where we've picked him! I'd say he's more an opener than anything else." That note of uncertainty is unlike Nasser. But it's very like England.

It is partnerships that win Test matches and opening ones are more important than any other kind. Atherton has said repeatedly that it takes time to build a relationship with an opening partner. He will go out to bat some time in the next two days with not only a tear in his eye but a novice under his wing.

It may work. The England batsman Trescothick is most reminiscent of is Chris Broad, the stiff-legged, straight-batted, left-handed opener of the mid-1980s, and he is one of the very few Englishmen to have started against the West Indies and impressed - he got 55 on his debut in 1984 and a 30 and a 40 later in the series, along with the inevitable shoe-size scores.

But by asking him to open, the selectors are making it as difficult as they can for Trescothick. He was terrific in the early part of the one-day series, but the only really good bowler he faced was Heath Streak (who dismissed him three times out of three, never for more than 29), and Curtly had gone fishing, and Courtney was putting his feet up. If Trescothick plays tomorrow, he should surely be kept well away from the new ball.

There is still time to change the plan. If Trescothick was Australian or West Indian, he would be in the squad, but only in line to play if England deploy all six of their specialist batsmen. The idea that Graham Thorpe may have to carry the drinks while Trescothick shoulders the burden of opening is just ludicrous. One day, when he has fifty-something Tests to his name and an average of 40, Trescothick will find himself elbowed aside in favour of some promising beginner, and he will ruefully remember this moment.

England's selection as a whole inspires little confidence. There are 13 men in the squad but only nine of them can reasonably be expected to make a major contribution, and one of those - Thorpe or Graeme Hick - may well be left out. If you were a betting person, how many runs and wickets would you foresee from Trescothick, Craig White, Matthew Hoggard and Robert Croft?

But two of them have to play and three probably will. In the circumstances, with Old Trafford dry as dust and conducive to reverse swing, White looks the least bad bet of the four, but his batting is horribly exposed if he goes in any higher than No 8.

The pity of the situation is that the almost-ideal opening partner for Atherton is in this squad. He would be technically a new partner, but not in practice as they batted masterfully together, in master-and-pupil fashion, in the last Test at Lord's. Michael Vaughan is only a year older than Trescothick but he is four steps further ahead in his cricketing education.

He has played Test cricket, he has faced Ambrose and Walsh together and thrived (that 41 at Lord's was worth 80 in a normal Test), he has captained the A team, and he has been on an England tour, learning by example and osmosis from the elders of the tribe. Let him join Atherton at the head of this batting order:

Atherton, Vaughan, Hick, Hussain (because No 4, not 3, is the hub of the team these days), Thorpe, Stewart, Trescothick, White or Croft (depending on conditions), Cork, Caddick, Gough. A team with no tail, and a lot more midriff than England are used to.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and wisden.com