Read is 21 the same age as Knott when he was thrust into the England side has velvet gloves
Read is 21, the same age as Knott when he was thrust into the England side, has velvet gloves and is learning to bat in the middle order as his 160 for Nottinghamshire two weeks ago demonstrated.The Championship is not what it was but Knott had not come close to a domestic hundred in 1967 when he was thrust into the Second Test against Pakistan at No 8, scored nought and, apart from a three-match hiatus that winter, kept the place for a generation. Read is not the finished article, of course not, but he is widely held to be the man for the future – a period which should start here.Option two would deprive England of the chance of blooding Read or anybody else but it would, at least, open the way for a new opening batsman. Mark Butcher, who has scored 712 Championship runs this summer and is in sound, confident form, has obviously booked one spot. His partner could either be Michael Vaughan, sparky A tour captain, two hundreds in one match this season but not much else besides or Darren Maddy, who has accumulated consistently for Leicestershire. Vaughan has a reputation for giving it away, but he has always somehow looked to have the class of an international player.Then there is option three, in which case Andrew Flintoff, 21, could be given a chance at No 6.
It would be bold and it would place a burden of expectation on him. Surely No 7 (where Ian Botham learned his trade and where, indeed, he batted against Australia when he became a legend in 1981) would be more appropriate at first. That may be so but there is no better chance for Flintoff to learn the perils and joys of No 6 than now.Having dealt with Banquo, sorry Stewart, Graveney and his men will fill in the rest of the batting. This is simple at the start of the series – Hussain at three, Graham Thorpe at four, Mark Ramprakash at five – and how spiffing it would be if that were still so after the Ashes have been regained in two years.The seam bowling places are between Alan Mullally, Alex Tudor, Chris Silverwood, Dean Headley and Andrew Caddick. Headley has had a woeful time this summer, poor chap, Caddick (42 wickets) has been in incisive form as has Tudor (38 wickets at at a good rate of one every 40 balls). Silverwood played one Test two winters ago in Zimbabwe, has known some hard times since but has stuck at it He is in form.
Graveney, incidentally, wants to pick more bowlers in the squad than might be strictly necessary so as their fitness can be tested.No doubt there will have to a spinner. Phil Tufnell could be recalled yet again, for he is the best in the country and Hussain has made it clear he intends to embrace what might be perceived as troublesome players. But Ashley Giles, peculiarly, has as many wickets and can bat.This is a big chance for England. Not only New Zealand but South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan and Australia will be waiting to see if they dare take it.Possible squad: N Hussain (Essex, capt); A J Stewart, M A Butcher, G P Thorpe (all Surrey); M R Ramprakash (Middlesex); A Flintoff (Lancashire); C M W Read (Notts); A J Tudor (Surrey); A F Giles (Warwickshire); C E W Silverwood (Yorkshire); A D Mullally (Leicestershire); A R Caddick (Somerset); D W Headley (Kent).Hussain interview, page 14.
BEWILDERMENT HAS been something of a common sporting emotion just recently. South Africa managing to run themselves out of town in the World Cup was a moment never to be forgotten, and maybe we can add Pakistan’s final flop to that. Certainly we should include the collapse of Martina Hingis at Wimbledon. Only a cold heart, or the most obnoxious Aussie yobbo, could have felt nothing for the broken Hingis, just a slip of a girl exposed to the toughest character test so often failed by players of more mature years. She was coming off a mental hiding last time out, hurting and freezing trying to handle it.
The demise of Hingis raises a worthwhile debating point about our expectation of sporting stars, particularly the young ones.
We are too unforgiving.Shane Warne has just survived a nightmare which not too many sporting heroes might have got through: a shoulder operation, a finger operation, then being dropped after coming back. Add to that some domestic pressures: of the last 10 months he’s been at home with his young family for just four, during which time his wife has given birth to his second child whom, when able to drag himself away from a crocodile line of tickertape parades, he has only just laid eyes on.Sometime in the middle of all that, just before the World Cup, the Australian vice-captain received a letter from his captain, Steve Waugh. It wasn’t hate mail, although scuttlebutt said the relationship had been icy since Waugh had agreed to Stuart MacGill getting the nod over Warne for the deciding Test against the West Indies in Antigua.Think what you will of Waugh as a tactician, as a charismatically challenged character, but when it comes to taking the tough decision he has no equal And that was a tough call. Warne had taken 300-plus Test wickets and had been hailed by Sir Donald Bradman as “the best thing to happen to cricket in a quarter of a century”.Warne admits the decision “deeply hurt”. Fair enough too, but we could have done without the special press conference, a sort of majestic overkill, to announce we were considering taking our ball and going home, early retirement. So, Warne was classified as stroppy, yet wasn’t he merely reflecting the public’s quite fickle attitude to him?How incongruous was it that in the preliminary stages of the World Cup the crowd booed when the ball was tossed to the world’s greatest leg-spinner yet, at the end of a dazzling first over Warne was accorded a standing ovation?Steve Waugh’s letter contained two simple messages.