Lord's just won't seem the same. For 15 years, when you strolled through the Grace Gates, there was a fair chance that the bowler doing the donkey-work for Middlesex was a well-built red-faced chap, whose faintly flat-footed run-up and delivery suggested that every over would be his last. Angus Fraser has done yeoman work for Middlesex since his debut as an 18-year-old wannabe in 1984 - a tall wannabe, at 6ft 5ins, and a brisk one who hit the bat harder and nearer the splice than the batsmen expected. The hair was curlier in those days, but the face was just as red after a few overs while the likes of Mike Selvey and Wayne Daniel were recharging their batteries.

Gus didn't strike you immediately as an England bowler of the future, in the way that, say, Andy Caddick did at first sight. But the word went around the circuit that this Fraser chap was a bit special, that he did enough with the ball to cause problems.

The England call came in 1989, a season of Ashes humiliation and one in which 29 players pulled on the not-so-exclusive three lions. In keeping with the air of selectorial silliness, Fraser served the drinks at Lord's - at least he knew where the dining-room was, as Mike Gatting kept the younger Middlesex boys busy with catering requests in those days - and had to watch Paul Jarvis getting the slope wrong (31-3-150-1) and being pummelled by Steve Waugh.

Waugh made 152 not out, and had amassed an Ashes-record 393 runs before he did get out, in the next Test at Edgbaston. The bowler who eventually got him was a bright-eyed debutant, Angus Fraser. He nipped out Ian Healy, Geoff Lawson and Dean Jones (for 157) as well, to finish with satisfying debut figures of 4 for 63. Gussie was launched.

After that, injury was his main opponent. His first forays into the alien territory of the media came in the early `90s, when a hip problem was misunderstood. For months he went around with a battery pack strapped to his thigh, sending impulses into the affected area. Journos joked that he was interfering with the TV reception when he clambered stiffly up the soulless stone stairs into the old Lord's press-box.

Against all the predictions - and jibes that he had got even slower - he came back for England, and took eight wickets in an upset win over Australia at The Oval in 1993. But a year later, in England's routine Ashes-tour blunder (remember Caddick staying at home in 1998-99?), Fraser was left out of the 1994-95 squad in favour of Martin McCague and Joey Benjamin. When injury and illness struck, Fraser - who was astutely playing club cricket in Sydney - was called up.

He was at his best on the supposedly unforgiving strips in the Caribbean, where received wisdom had it that you had to tear in like the wind and stick the ball up the batsman's nose. But 8 for 75 at Bridgetown in 1993-94, when England became the first touring team to win a Test in Barbados for 59 years, suggests that Fraser worked out the percentages pretty well. He returned in 1997-98, sneaking the last place because the management viewed him as a coach-cum-mentor for the younger pace bowlers like Dean Headley and, er, Ashley Cowan.

Fraser never quite saw it that way, though. He was determined to play, and cemented his place with 20 wickets in the back-to-back Trinidad nailbiters, including 8 for 53 in the first one, which England lost. There were 18 wickets in the two Tests England won to take the 1998 home series against South Africa. Puffing a bit by now, he bowed out of international cricket after another epic, the 1998-99 Melbourne Test which England won by 12 runs.

In all Fraser took 177 wickets in 46 Tests, at a handy 27.32. But that's only half the story: he missed 57 matches through injuries and assorted selectors' misplaced belief that he was as knackered as he looked and needed a rest. It could have been 300 wickets, although that would have meant a lot more kicking the crease in disgust at another bout of outrageous ill-fortune when a plumb lbw was turned down.

Now Gus Fraser is tackling those press-box stairs permanently. It's a big task for a fairly inexperienced journalist to take on the job of cricket correspondent for a daily broadsheet. There will be rumblings from the back row about players swanning into top jobs, and demands from sports-desk staff more red-faced than Fraser ever was on the field. But compared to running in uphill at Lord's, with Brian Lara at the other end, it should be a breeze. Blowing the right way, too.

Steven Lynch is database director of Wisden.com.

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