Banger beats Beefy

One chunky Somerset man grabbed a record from another today when Marcus Trescothick marched out to the crease at Old Trafford in the NatWest Series match against South Africa. It was his 68th consecutive one-day international for England, beating the record of 67 set by Ian Botham between 1977-78 and 1983-84.

Trescothick has been ever-present for England since making his debut - and cracking a typically aggressive 79 - against Zimbabwe at The Oval in 2000, during the inaugural NatWest Series.

However, although Trescothick already holds the England record, he still has a long way to go before he takes the overall lead. As our table shows, Sachin Tendulkar managed to play 185 consecutive ODIs between 1989-90 and 1997-98. At the current rate it will take Trescothick until around 2010 to approach that, by which time he could be a very clapped-out old Banger indeed.