Posted by We’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most.
We’re all expert epidemiologists these days so it’s tempting to think there’s some sort of favourite player infection going on here. Gooch opened with Athers and infected him and then Athers opened with Trescothick and infected him.
It’s not like that though. It’s just that we’re doing this in batting order. It’s not entirely unlikely that our favourite openers batted together.
Superfit Gooch and Young Athers was all about the quick singles. Dodgy-Backed Old Athers and Sausage-Eating Trescothick was not.
Tres was great though. These days he seems to be chiefly remembered for the way his international career ended and his long stint in county cricket, but Marcus Trescothick was a really, really, incredibly good England opening batsman who lumped loads of brutal fours.
His approach, and success, was something of a revelation to us and that’s why we felt such affection for him.
In the 1990s, averaging over 40 was The Thing. England pretty much just had Robin Smith and Graham Thorpe the right side of the line. Then suddenly Marcus Trescothick came along averaging 40-odd opening the batting without moving his feet.
It’s easy to forget how important and amazing he was.
Bloody loved Tres. To a fixed-foot opener like me, he was the exemplar. Sadly, everything else he was, I was not.
He achieved alot in a relatively short span too. 76 tests, 123 ODI’s all in 6 years. You look at that workload with all the training and days travel/on tour around it and its no surprise people struggle to cope. Or why Cook finished at a relatively young age for example.
He’d have been England’s leading run scorer before Cook had he managed to keep going another 5 years.
I loved him.
This is mirroring my team so far. Lovely stuff.
Atherton and Trescothick opening together just felt like day dot of when England not being rubbish all began, even though it only actually happened for about a year
Also, of course, one of the great cricket names for anagrams, given that his surname has all the letters of the word ‘cricket’ in it.
Trescothick rearranges to ‘cricket shot’, whilst his full name is an anagram of ‘O, such smart cricket’, which I’m sure has been fertile ground for cryptic crosswords over the years.
That is good anagramage. What are the other great names?
Other contenders for this XI:
Moan Habit = Ian Botham
One Email = Moeen Ali
Bad star tour = Stuart Broad
I’m sure other commenters will have plenty more to contribute as well
Also, slightly unfairly: Bravo, a pair! = Ravi Bopara
The Botham one is especially splendid. I’m sure I had a good one for Derek Pringle at one point, but I’m buggered if I can find it now.
Derek Pringle = linger perked.
Fits especially nicely with Charley The Gent & The Boy Malloy’s observation of the fella, as reported on this site a few years ago:
https://www.kingcricket.co.uk/keith-pont-benefit-match-report-ongar-cricket-club-1986/2017/08/02/
Nasser Hussain = Ruin sans ashes
Michael Atherton = Chattier Manhole
One of my most favouritest cricketers. And for a long time our only genuinely good ODI batsman