Stewart awoke with back pain and, versatile fellow that he is, three men were needed as cover for him: Jack Russell, dropped after the tour of the West Indies, and Graeme Hick, who last played 19 England Tests ago, were pulled out of the County Championship match at Worcester and have joined the party in London, one as reserve wicketkeeper, the other as reserve number four. Nasser Hussain stands by to captain.
Stewart said he would play in all his roles, or not at all. Before the end of England's practice session at a mercifully dry Lord's, however, he was keeping wicket with no apparent discomfort and describing himself as 75 per cent certain to be fit. Physiotherapy and muscle-relaxing pills should see him marching out to toss with Hansie Cronje soon after Prince Philip has officially opened the stately new Grandstand.
Butcher, who bruised his thumb trying to take a slip catch on Monday, was unable to hit the ball without pain yesterday. James is preferred to Darren Maddy and to an alternative left-hander in Nick Knight, who might, like Butcher, have disrupted the line of the South African bowling. But James illustrates the moral that a cricketer should never abandon hope. Maddy, six years James's junior at 24, out-batted him on the England A tour last winter but the selectors reminded themselves that Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock are the South African opening bowlers and reconsidered his early promotion. He had only one innings in the Texaco Trophy, which proved nothing, and despite his prolific one-day performances for Leicestershire he has made only 78 first-class runs this season from eight innings.
James, by contrast, has scored 733 and fate decreed his 152 against Worcestershire on Monday to be timely. His always solid right-handed batting developed as he resolved to hit the ball straighter, to the extent that he will walk out to bat in this match, assuming he plays, with 4,274 first-class runs over the last three seasons at an average of 76. This is a late maturing vintage indeed, for in his two years as a Cambridge blue he was reckoned a limited batsman.
This last-minute shuffling is all too familiar and it can have an unsettling effect. England have won only one of their last nine Tests here and it is time that they were more inspired by Lord's and its history than their opponents. The colossal 356-run defeat by South Africa four years ago was comfortably the nadir of the Atherton era, for more reasons than one, but Stewart loves the ground, not least because he has scored two of his 10 Test hundreds here.
Nor will Dominic Cork forget his match-winning performance in the defeat of the West Indies in his first Test in 1995. Because of the slope, it must be to England's advantage that their other new-ball bowler, Angus Fraser, is on his home ground and that Donald and Pollock, who have had only seven overs between them since their wayward performances at Edgbaston, have some catching up to do. Donald feels his rhythm has returned.
South Africa will have an opening batsman of their own playing here for the first time: Adam Bacher is expected to resume as Gary Kirsten's partner in place of Gerry Liebenberg, though they have the option of opening with Jacques Kallis and recalling Brian McMillan.
Bad as the weather forecast is for the first part of today - all tickets are sold for the first four days - it will warm up and brighten tomorrow and there is promise of a heatwave over the weekend. That will add to the dilemma for the captain who wins the toss because Mick Hunt's carefully-prepared pitch, expected to be a slow seamer, was sending out confusing signals yesterday. Relaid five years ago, it is evenly grassed but cracked. Because of the recent rain (and despite the new hover cover) it has not fully dried, so a hot sun might draw moisture to the surface.
If the start is much delayed, England will consider giving Chris Silverwood a second cap, presumably at Robert Croft's expense. Priorities will have been misguided if Silverwood's greater batting ability was part of the reason for his being preferred to Ed Giddins, but Croft's all-round ability has helped him remain the only spinner despite figures of four wickets at a cost of 100.75 runs each in his last three games.
Like everyone, Croft will pray that sunny weather comes quickly. MCC have lavished £11 million on the Grandstand and with the new media centre looming like a giant eye from the Nursery End, all is as white and clean as a bridal dress. The ground deserves, and the game needs, a memorable match.
England (from): M A Atherton, S P James, N Hussain, *+A J Stewart, G P Thorpe, M R Ramprakash, M A Ealham, R D B Croft, D G Cork, D W Headley, A R C Fraser, C E W Silverwood, M A Butcher, G A Hick, -R C Russell.
S Africa (from): G Kirsten, A M Bacher, J H Kallis, D J Cullinan, *W J Cronje, J N Rhodes, S M Pollock, L Klusener, +M V Boucher, P R Adams, A A Donald, B M McMillan.