Trescothick takes the stand

It is a safe bet, that for all the traditions that Lord's has compiled in its 190-year history, the latest is one that they would gladly do away with at the earliest opportunity. At 10.30am today, and for the second match in consecutive years, a new England captain will lead his team onto the field. Last time around, against South Africa, it was Nasser Hussain's shock resignation that paved the way for a wide-eyed Michael Vaughan; today, following Vaughan's distressing knee injury, Marcus Trescothick becomes England's 75th Test captain, as he takes centre stage against New Zealand.

On Wednesday afternoon Trescothick enjoyed his first taste of the limelight, as he posed with the npower Trophy in the Pavilion's famous Long Room. For the second year running, the greats of the game peered down from the priceless portraits that adorn the walls, as if to pass their verdict on the new appointee. This time, however, one detail was missing. For Vaughan's photoshoot in 2003, he had been kitted out in all his three-lioned splendour - blazer, cap and crisp white shirt. Trescothick, on the other hand, had to settle for an England training top and a Vodafone baseball cap. The implication hardly needed spelling out.

Nonetheless, New Zealand's captain, Stephen Fleming, was soon on hand to spell it out anyway. "As a caretaker, you don't have time to stamp your own mark on the team," said Fleming, who never knocks twice when the psychological high ground is there for the taking. "We've noticed that certain individuals are under a lot of pressure from the media. If Trescothick is one of those, it will be interesting to see how he takes to the extra responsibility."

Interesting indeed. A mere six weeks ago, the notion of Trescothick being saddled with any extra responsibility was laughable. Until a timely 88 in the second innings of Lara's match in Antigua, he had mustered a mere 78 runs in seven innings, and had appeared more hopelessly out of sorts than at any other stage in his already fluctuating Test career. But then came a soggy, low-key one-day series, and his form came flooding back amid the showers. A brilliant century in St Lucia was followed by a spanking 57-ball 82 in Barbados, and the rest is shortly to become part of history.

What type of history remains to be seen. Trescothick will at least be in good company if his first match in charge is a disaster - Vaughan's debut ended in defeat by an innings and 92 runs, a result carved from the granite will of South Africa's 21-year-old captain, Graeme Smith, whose 259 was his second double-century in consecutive matches. Fleming, however, had Smith in his pocket during their recent home series, which hardly bodes well for the coming days and weeks, if Vaughan's injury proves to be more serious than is currently being let on.

And yet, there is some cause for optimism in the England camp. For starters, they are a settled, successful and united side, and thanks to Vaughan's democratic style of leadership, there will be no shortage of ideas flooding forth from the team thinktank. That will suit Trescothick just fine. In an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly in 2002, he candidly admitted that he didn't know what type of leader he would be, and judging by Wednesday afternoon's press conference, he is still sticking to that wait-and-see approach.

But more importantly, the promotion - no matter how temporary - is a much-needed opportunity for Trescothick to prove a point or two to himself, and to the critics who have called into question his leadership abilities. Regrets? He's had a few. During the 2003 World Cup for instance, his misinterpretation of the Duckworth-Lewis figures almost resulted in an embarrassing defeat against Namibia, and at the end of that winter he declared - rather too publicly - that he was fed up of cricket, and wanted to "turn into a fat bastard and sleep for a year".

If that remark dented his prospects of the captaincy, the worst came last summer at Headingley, where he narrowly avoided a public lynching after going off for bad light with South Africa on the ropes. He was dismissed shortly after the resumption, and England somehow contrived to lose a match that they had dominated from the first over. But throughout it all, he has remained one of the most loyal and dependable members of the team - the first man to offer throw-downs on the morning of a match, the team's official ball-polisher, and in the opinion of Nasser Hussain, "a really good egg". He deserves his chance to prove himself.

The captaincy could even be the making of him. Trescothick has often been likened to a left-handed Graham Gooch, but that analogy need not apply just to their techniques. Both men have been regarded as quality NCOs, if not quite officer material, but in Gooch's case, that assumption proved as wide of the mark as Ted Dexter's declaration that he possessed the "charisma of a wet fish". When Gooch was appointed as full-time captain in 1989, he too had just emerged from a horrific run of form, but over the next four years he set about transforming his legacy. His career average ballooned from a distinctly average 36.90 to a classy 42.58, and his place in the pantheon was secured.

Now Trescothick has the chance to lead from the front as well. His best innings in home Tests - his 66 on debut and his 219 against South Africa last summer - were both made possible by an iron-willed adherence to the basics, most crucially an absolute certainty of the whereabouts of his off stump. If he can use the highest honour in the game to concentrate his mind, and prevent him from chasing those deliveries that angle across his bows, he might yet be allowed the full regalia when he next poses for the cameras in the Long Room.