There was some encouragement for England rejects Craig White and Ian Ward as they pondered on their omission from this week's fourth Ashes Test at Headingley.

Neither Ward nor White made much impression in the first three Tests of the series, and both men were left out of the 13-man squad announced yesterday by the England selectors.

Ward made way for captain Nasser Hussain, while White's place is likely to go to Nottinghamshire batsman Usman Afzaal. England are planning to name seven batsmen and four seamers as they try to halt Australia's winning bandwagon.

Graham Thorpe and Michael Vaughan are both expected to have recovered from injury in time for the final Test at the Oval starting on August 23rd, which could add to the pressure on White and Ward for their places on this winter's tours of India and New Zealand.

But there was encouragement for the two men from Michael Atherton, England's stand-in captain in Hussain's absence at Lord's and Trent Bridge. Atherton believes both players will come back better equipped to deal with the pressure of international cricket.

"Ian Ward has had a little bit of a struggle against the Australians, but that sometimes happens when you start your Test career," said Atherton.

"You come in and the opposition find you out a little bit and you just have to go back and work hard at your game and try and put those technical faults or frailties to right.

"I remember it happened to me. I played two games against Australia in 1989 and wasn't really up to the mark, but I went away, worked really hard in the winter and came back the next summer."

Atherton's winter absence from Test cricket was followed by an innings of 151 against New Zealand at Trent Bridge the following summer. He believes Ward will be able to make similar improvements.

"I think Ian Ward is that type of character," he said. "He'll go away and look at things that haven't gone quite right this summer - I'm sure he'll work hard to put them right and there's no reason why he can't bounce back.

"He ought to gain from his experiences this summer if he looks at what's happened carefully and looks at the areas the Australians have bowled at him and he goes away and tries to put those things right.

"He'll come back a stronger person and better player and there's no reason why he can't relaunch his Test career in the future."

White, more experienced than Ward with 21 Test caps, was left out more because of struggles with the ball than his batting disappointments.

"He's had a little bit of a confidence problem with the ball this summer," said Atherton. "Although he hasn't scored runs in the Tests, he's been confident with the bat as we saw in the Roses match when he smashed 180 last week.

"His confidence is high with the bat. I don't think it has been quite so with the ball and the injury at the start of the season really put him back a little bit, but I'm sure when the team go to India he'll be part of that this winter."

England have recalled Alan Mullally 18 months after his last appearance in South Africa, and Somerset fast bowler Richard Johnson is also in the squad.

Mullally has performed impressively for Hampshire against Australia and Warwickshire. Johnson's recall comes six years after he was forced to withdraw from England's tour of South Africa with back trouble.

The two players will compete with Andrew Caddick, Alex Tudor and Darren Gough for four places in a likely all-seam attack.

© CricInfo Ltd.