THE Test series for the Ashes is what matters this season. England's selection committee, David Graveney, Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting, who meet tonight, would be well advised to keep some of their likely Test players up their sleeves and to hit the Australians with one or two good county cricketers in peak form in next week's Texaco Trophy matches.
Mike Smith of Gloucestershire, for example, would have been on no one's shortlist when this season began but he should certainly be on the official one now. Now 29, he was good enough to be chosen ahead of a number of left-arm-over bowlers for the A tour to Pakistan two winters ago, only to take little part because of a rib injury. He has started this season outstandingly well.
Alan Mullally has had an extended chance; Mark Ilott more fitful opportunities; Simon Brown an all too brief one so far; and there are others, but none, I think, so guaranteed as Smith to move the ball in all conditions and particularly to make it dip in late to the right-handers. He does so at no great pace, but for a one-day international at least that is virtually irrelevant.
Graham Rose, of Somerset, and Mark Alleyne, of Gloucestershire, are two other experienced county cricketers and either one of them might reasonably be picked as an all-rounder on the crest of a wave. Either would be only a temporary expedient, but the objective is to win the Texaco Trophy rather than to plan for the Ashes series or even for the 1999 World Cup. Rose has hit two championship hundreds in a row and Alleyne, who took six wickets against Surrey yesterday, has been at the heart of his county's success so far.
The selectors are more likely to take a chance on the burgeoning talent of Ben Hollioake or to go for two of the three all-rounders who served them in one-day internationals last year, Chris Lewis, Mark Ealham and Ronnie Irani. Ealham has not been at his best and Irani has faded after a great start with the bat but Lewis has probably ruled himself out because of a neck injury.
Fourteen players will be chosen, to allow for different conditions in the three matches at Headingley, the Oval and Lord's next Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Two will be spinners who can bat, Robert Croft and Ashley Giles, but the fast bowling options are much wider. Darren Gough, Peter Martin and Phillip DeFreitas would be in my party along with Smith.
Andrew Caddick is likely to be kept for the Test matches and the three contending fast bowlers of real pace for the Ashes series, Devon Malcolm, Martin McCague and Alex Tudor, are all unlikely to be risked in 50-over games. There will be a temptation to include Dean Headley, the man most likely to play either in Dominic Cork's place in the first Test, or as a fourth fast bowler; but there is little point in showing him to the Australians now.
There is a wide choice for the batting places. Mike Atherton has already been named captain, though his place in the batting order is not certain. Alec Stewart will bat at two or three, and both Graham Thorpe and Graham Lloyd, the fastest one-day scorer of them all, are certainties. So, for his all-round ability and shrewdness, is Adam Hollioake.
That leaves room for only one more and the choice may be between Nick Knight, still short of match practice after his complex finger break in New Zealand, Chris Adams of Derbyshire, Trevor Ward of Kent and two whose qualities and shortcomings are well known: Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick.
Possible England Squad.- * M A Atherton (Lancs), - A J Stewart (Surrey), C J Adams (Derbys), G P Thorpe (Surrey), G D Lloyd (Lancs), A J Hollioake (Surrey), M A Ealham (Kent), R C Irani (Essex), R D B Croft (Glamorgan), A F Giles (Warwicks), D Gough (Yorks), P A J DeFreitas (Derbys), P J Martin (Lancs), A M Smith (Gloucs).