Tresco: not such a big loss after all

Marcus Trescothick has flown home again. To flee one tour may be considered a misfortune; to do it twice looks like naivety, not so much from Trescothick, but on the part of the England management. When they picked him for the Ashes at the same time as saying he was unfit for the Champions Trophy, they were treating a mental illness as if it were a physical one. Stress doesn’t work like that.

Trescothick’s timing could be better, but it could also be worse – he could have hung around right up to, or even into, the first Test. As it is, England have a ready-made replacement at the top of the order in Alastair Cook, who should make more runs as an opener, protected to some extent from Shane Warne, than he would have done at number three. And they have a ready-made replacement for Cook in Paul Collingwood, who didn’t deserve to lose his place in the middle order. For the team, this isn't a great blow. They coped with it last time and on this year's form, Trescothick shouldn’t have been in the side anyway. He will be a bigger loss at first slip than at the top of the order. He did great work in the last Ashes in getting England off to rapid starts, but Andrew Strauss, currently playing with a new freedom, has it in him to take up that mantle.

The only problem is that Ian Bell has to move up from six, where he flourished against Pakistan, to three. England would be more comfortable if they had followed the advice of certain bloggers and brought Owais Shah, Mark Butcher or Mark Ramprakash, instead of a sixth seam bowler.

Trescothick has never made an Ashes hundred, and now it begins to look as if he never will. There will be plenty of suggestions, in the overheated world of the British media, that this is the end of his international career. But Graham Thorpe went through similar agonies with his marriage break-up, and eventually fought his way back to enjoy a fruitful last couple of years as a Test batsman.

When Thorpe was recalled for the Oval Test against South Africa in 2003, a match England had to win to square the series, he was extremely nervous. He was calmed down and carried through by his partner – Trescothick. Thorpe made a hundred, Trescothick a double. He is a great team man, who has earned the right to be handled with sympathy.

For Duncan Fletcher, the news is a reminder that this is not 2005 all over again. He now has a different captain, a different vice-captain, and at least two players who didn’t feature in the last Ashes – Cook and Jimmy Anderson, whose rehab took another step forward today – as well as Collingwood, whose role in 2005 was peripheral. Let’s hope this makes Fletcher a little less inclined to cling to his MBEs, and more open to the idea of sticking with the best young slow bowler England have produced in 40 years.