Nick Knight is fairly sure to play in the remaining six limitedovers games but what he wants most is to establish his right to a Test place, and that is not so certain.
He is by most standards an outstanding cricketer; a dashing left-handed batsman, zippy medium-paced bowler who no longer bowls, even in the nets, because of a back injury, and, not least, a brilliant fielder in any position, especially the one which occasionally decides a close Test match, second slip. There are good judges, however, who think him not quite good enough in his main role, as an opening batsman.
He has much still to learn, but is intelligent and dedicated. If he does not establish himself at the start of the Ashes series it will probably be only a matter of time before he does. More than that, he might be an England captain of the middle distant fu- ture. He has the ambition and the character.
His father John was an international hockey player and his brother, two years older, could probably have played county cricket had he wanted to. They played together in one of the teams at Felsted, where Gordon Barker, of Essex, developed the talents of Derek Pringle, John Stephenson and Nick Knight in turn.
Barker is cautious, as Yorkshiremen can be, when asked if Knight is the best he has coached. ``Certainly the best all-round gamesplayer of the lot,'' he says. Opening the batting for England, however, demands more than just a talent for ball games; more also than the courage which he showed when he batted the day after he had been taken to hospital by ambulance from Trent Bridge after receiving a direct hit on the head, fielding at silly-point.
His problem in New Zealand, as he now accepts, has been impatience. Having followed the course set by another left-handed England opener, Bob Barber, by turning himself into an attacking batsman as soon as he started to play for Warwickshire, he found it hard to accept that it is necessary on overseas pitches to bide your time. Instead of getting himself used to the pace and bounce of the ball, he was aiming flamboyant strokes outside the off stump too early. Having been leg before to Simon Doull at Auckland, he was caught in the gully at Wellington and at first slip in the first innings in Christchurch.
In the second, with so much at stake for himself and for England, he reined himself in and had put on 64 in 25 overs with Mike Atherton when he tried in vain to hit Daniel Vettori over the top of mid-on. If England had gone on to lose, Knight might not have been included in the side at Edgbaston for the first Test in early June. Now, helped by the kind of dashing innings he played in the second international on Sunday, he will have to have had a poor start to the season in England not to be retained.
His exceptional catching ability strengthens his claim. In the second innings in Christchurch his four catches were taken in three different positions: one at second slip, where he probably outshines even Tony Greig and Graeme Hick as the best since Graham Roope; one, perfectly judged, just inside the boundary at deep extra-cover; and two at silly-point, including the one contested so strongly by Bryan Young. By inference Young was accusing him of being a cheat.
Knight, having confirmed that he had got his fingers beneath the ball before it hit the ground, simply said when he heard that Young had not been punished for dissent: ``That's good. No one likes to see a fellow professional fined.''
It was a mature reaction, but he is 27, and experienced in more than cricket. He has no regrets about delaying a full-time career by spending three years at Loughborough University reading sociology because it broadened his education generally and that will help him if he should become captain, whether of Warwickshire, or of England, or indeed of both. He is vicecaptain to Tim Munton this year.
In the winters he made up for time lost by playing two seasons of tough club cricket in Australia and had A tours of India and Bangladesh in 1994-95 and Pakistan last winter.
Batting under greater pressure on this tour in two countries where conditions are different has opened his eyes further, but so, even more, has the greater intensity of a senior tour. If he has handled it less well than he hoped since his admirable 96 off 117 balls, which so nearly won England the Bulawayo Test before Christmas, it is because of a slight confusion over his approach - ``I'm an attacking batsman so I want to keep playing shots, but I know I've got to be more patient at the start of an innings in Test cricket'' - and a technical problem with falling across to the off-side.
``Batting is about rhythm and that comes from getting the head in line with the ball each time. If I move outside the line my head isn't still when I play at the ball and that's why I've given a few catches to slip and gully. It's also the reason for getting caught down the leg-side as I was in three successive innings at one point. It went much better in the second innings at Lancaster Park. Athers is a help to me. He indicates by a nod or a word whether or not my head is still and behind the ball.''
David Lloyd, although he will not be a selector next season, is keen to stick with him. ``He's got to learn to rein his shots in, like Graham Gooch did. And he has to keep sideways-on to the bowler, reducing the width of his body.'' The England coach says he has not seen a better catcher in the slips and Darren Gough is among those who concurs: ``He's great for the fast bowlers.''
Knight is, of course, certain to play in Napier tomorrow evening and no doubt he will continue to rise to the razzmatazz of night cricket. I hope, however, that while the new England Cricket Board listen to most of what the coach tells them when he reports on the lessons of this tour, they will quietly consign his latest suggestion to the waste-paper basket.
Lloyd would like to see one-day internationals in England with the coloured clothes and rock music which have helped to fill grounds here, so that our players are properly prepared.
He cannot be serious. England seem to be doing quite well without previous experience of these excesses, and in any case all tickets for one-day internationals at home are sold well in advance of each match.
Let us, please, preserve some dignity and reject the spurious and tasteless. We already play 50-over games and apply the standard regulations for these games: circles; 15-over limitations etc. England, so far, have recognised that cricket, properly played, will sell itself. Other countries seem blind to the harm they are doing to the wider game.