Old warriors to face off

Being the man he is, and with respect to fellow professionals, Courtney Walsh will pass on quiet, but heartfelt, congratulations. He may even shake hands when they arrive in the middle at Old Trafford during the third Test.

Having welcomed Michael Atherton and Alec Stewart to an elite club to which he himself has long since belonged, Walsh will then do everything he possibly can to make their 100th Test match one of miserable memories.

It is no more than Atherton and Stewart would expect. It is a signal occasion for them both as they join Walsh (119), five other Englishmen (Colin Cowdrey, Geoff Boycott, David Gower, Ian Botham and Graham Gooch) and 14 others who have remained good enough, fit enough and interested enough to reach the landmark but there is no place for sentiment in the heat of a Test match, not least one as critical as that starting today.

Walsh has had stirring battles against both for the West Indies.

He first confronted Stewart, at 37 six months his junior, in an England helmet on his debut at Sabina Park in 1990. Since then, the son of former England batsman and team manager, Mikey, has had 21 Tests against the West Indies in three roles opener, middle order batsman and wicket-keeper. His status today is at No.6 and keeper.

Of Stewart's 13 hundreds, his most vital and treasured were in the same Test in 1994 after England had been bowled out for 46 at the Queen's Park Oval and beaten for the third successive time in the previous match.

Stewart's rare double led to an England victory to break an unbeaten West Indies' sequence of 39 years at Kensington Oval.

In every one of his 22 Tests against the West Indies, in which he has scored three hundreds, Atherton has taken guard to face Walsh with the new ball. Only once has Walsh's partner in menace, Curtly Ambrose, been missing, in the corresponding Test at Old Trafford five years ago.

Ambrose has dismissed him more times than any other bowler in Tests, 13, but the most indelible image of his jousts with the West Indies was of him fending off, and finally succumbing, to Walsh's bodyline blitz at Sabina Park in 1994. While British correspondents castigated the tactics, Atherton revelled in the challenge and said so.

Both have come through the disappointment of losing the captaincy, Atherton after 52 Tests following England's 3-1 defeat on their last tour of the West Indies in 1998, Stewart after 14 following the disastrous World Cup campaign last year. Atherton has played for much of his career with a painful and limiting back injury.

In an age when it has been in short supply, Atherton and Stewart have typified old-time English fighting spirit. The West Indies will not be content until they have got rid of both over the next few days.