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It was unlikely that England would make many alterations for the second Test against New Zealand, which starts at Lord's on Thursday, and the selectors, meeting on Saturday night, decided to make none. The only change is that the original party of 13 picked for Edgbaston is one man fewer as Chris Silverwood has been released to play for Yorkshire.

Silverwood will play against Northamptonshire at Scarborough tomorrow alongside Darren Gough, who was not considered sufficiently match fit to regain his Test place. That means the new ball will be entrusted again to Alan Mullally and Andrew Caddick, with Dean Headley challenging Alex Tudor for the third pacer's spot.

Gough came back to first-class cricket last week after a month away with an injured calf and took seven wickets at Edgbaston as Yorkshire beat Warwickshire. But the selectors decided he needed more match practice before he could take his place as England's main fast bowler.

His absence should enable Alex Tudor, the 21-year-old Surrey paceman, to show the Lord's crowd that he can bowl as well as he showed Edgbaston he could bat. It was Tudor, as nightwatchman, who took the honours in the first Test, making an unbeaten 99 as England won a low-scoring game by seven wickets.

Tudor is the fourth and youngest of the Surrey players in the team, which reflects the high-class cricket they are playing in the championship, which they lead by 24 points, having won seven of their 10 games. Graham Thorpe and Mark Butcher are in fine form, which makes Alec Stewart's plight all the more visible.

This time last year, Stewart was leading England to a series victory over South Africa, though no one was to know that after the Lord's Test, which England lost by 10 wickets. Now, after his demotion from the captaincy and a poor start to the season, including two failures at the top of the order at Edgbaston, he is playing for his international future.

The selectors took a gamble by retaining him when there was a very good case for putting him out to grass. Neither they nor he enjoyed the spectacle in Birmingham, where he looked woefully short of form with bat and also at slip. There is no way of disguising the personal importance of Lord's, where another failure would make Stewart's position untenable.

Two other young players, apart from Tudor, will be making their first Test appearance at Lord's. Chris Read, the Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper, cut an impressive figure in Birmingham and Aftab Habib, who failed there, comes to town on the back of an unbeaten hundred in Leicestershire's victory at Arundel.

It is about time England gave a decent account of themselves at the world's most famous cricket ground. They won there in 1995, when Dominic Cork bowled out the West Indies on his debut, and the recent record shows one victory in the last eight matches, and no fewer than five defeats.

England: *N Hussain (Essex, age 31, Tests 40), M A Butcher (Surrey, 26, 20), A J Stewart (Surrey, 36, 87), G P Thorpe (Surrey, 29, 54), M R Ramprakash (Middlesex, 29, 35), A Habib (Leics, 27, 1), -C M W Read (Notts, 20, 1), A J Tudor (Surrey, 21, 3), A R Caddick (Somerset, 30, 22), A D Mullally (Leics, 30, 14), P C R Tufnell (Middlesex, 33, 35), D W Headley (Kent, 29, 13).