Wednesday, March 20, 2002 The drama that unfolded on Saturday afternoon at Christchurch was so absorbing that it was easy to forget one crucial aspect of England's performance. On Thursday, Tim de Lisle wrote that Matthew Hoggard, who had just swung his way to figures of 7 for 63, had become the third great find of Nasser Hussain's captaincy, after Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan. Well, now we can add a fourth: Freddie Flintoff, come on down (but try to keep your shirt on).

Until that muscular 137 - as Falstaffian as it was Flintoffian - Freddie was only half a discovery, because while his bowling since the start of the India tour had been incisive, his batting had been insipid. Flintoff's recent run in Test cricket until Friday's breakthrough innings would have made Devon Malcolm blush: five innings, three ducks, eight runs. Some captains would have decided he wasn't worth the risk at No. 7 and would have dropped him down the order - or dropped him altogether and given Craig White a chance. But Hussain has always stood by his man, and Flintoff's boundary-laden century vindicated his loyalty.

One of Hussain's great skills as a captain has been the strength of his own convictions. He has taken a look at new players, and then either ditched them quickly (think of Ronnie Irani, Darren Maddy, Ed Giddins, Chris Adams, Gavin Hamilton, Vikram Solanki, Graeme Swann, Jason Brown, and Ian Salisbury) or stuck with them, even if initial results have been unpromising.

Trescothick and Vaughan were hand-picked from the seething mass of county mediocrity, despite having mediocre records themselves, because Hussain - or possibly Duncan Fletcher - had spotted what Tom Wolfe would call The Right Stuff. Hussain even ignored the critics by encouraging Vaughan to be a one-day batsman when his early record in blue (56 runs in his first seven innings) was anything but purple. The result was a scintillating 59 off 53 balls at Auckland that had even Stephen Fleming purring. And while recent England teams wouldn't have coped with the absence of their star bowler, Hussain's confidence in Hoggard rubbed off on him with such polish that you almost forgot we were supposed to be missing Darren Gough.

But Hussain has done more than foster young talent. He has re-nurtured old talent too. Mark Ramprakash bats less neurotically than he used to, and the reintegration into the side of Mark Butcher for last summer's Ashes led to one of the great innings of all time. Hussain also gave Andy Caddick another chance after Alec Stewart shamefully omitted him from the 1998-99 tour to Australia. And he coaxed a Test century out of White, whose batting average was once as low as his self-esteem.

True, Hussain benefits from having a laissez-faire chairman of selectors in David Graveney, while Mike Atherton was mostly lumbered with the more dictatorial Ray Illingworth. But you get the feeling that Hussain would still have made more out of fragile youngsters like Matthew Maynard and Mark Lathwell, and classy veterans like Robin Smith, Jack Russell and Angus Fraser.

One or two questions during the Hussain reign remain unanswered. Does he think Usman Afzaal and Jimmy Ormond are up to it? And is James Foster really good enough? But Hussain and Fletcher are experimenting all the time, and on the whole they've got it right. And they've already started work on their next project. Ian Bell arrived in Wellington yesterday, and most people agree he will be playing for England within a year. The house that Nasser and Dunc built could be about to get even bigger.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. His English Angle appears here on Wednesdays.

More English Angle
The worst ever?

Why Gough must stay

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd