Mirror

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/2009/08/10/england-must-pick-marcus-trescothick-or-mark-ramprakash-115875-21586126/

England must pick Marcus Trescothick or Mark Ramprakash

By Mike Walters 10/08/2009

The Ashes

Fetch the chloroform, matron - the sickly patients are not going to like their medicine.

But after England's desultory surrender at Headingley, there is no point in applying sticking plasters where amputations are required.

Two hours of slap and tickle in a lost cause yesterday cannot paper over the cracks of the abject humiliation which preceded it.

If the Ashes are going to come home at The Oval in two weeks, selectors must tear up the grand design they scribbled on the back of a menu at the start of this summer.

When the equation is down to win or bust, normal rules of selection go out of the window. This is a job for real men, and only candidates who are stout of heart and firm of rectum need apply.

Scattergun bilge though the bowlers served up at times, make no mistake: England's batsmen were the guilty men behind their most pathetic defeat on home soil since the West Indies blew them away in seven sessions on a corrugated pitch at Edgbaston in 1995.

Ravi Bopara, Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood contributed just 16 runs in six innings between them here. If they were soldiers, they would be facing a court martial this morning for dereliction of duty.

Aussie captain Ricky Ponting suspected England's middle order would be exposed as a soft centre without Kevin Pietersen. He was right.

Any changes for the final Test must address that chocolate-box softness. It will be no place for rookies.

So on that basis, the first call national selector Geoff Miller makes should be to Marcus Trescothick, to see if 'Banger' fancies a one-Test encore.

His task, should he choose to accept it, will be to rescue a priceless antique from a crocodile's jaws with no blame attached if he is too late to stop the beast slithering back into the swamp.

Trescothick may still be under treatment for stressrelated depression, and it's a big ask for him to come out of international retirement and step back into the spotlight which slowly microwaved his mind for six years.

But for five days only, on a ground where he scored a Test double hundred against South Africa in 2003, it's worth a try - because he can't do any worse than Bopara, Bell or Colly in the Great Leeds Peep Show.

Under the captaincy of that celebrated composer of topsecret dossiers, Justin Langer, Trescothick has scored 1,330 runs at 78.23 for Somerset this season, including six tons.

The public would warm to his recall, and it must be tempting to restore his partnership with Andrew Strauss at the top of the shop with Alastair Cook moving down to first "drop".

And if England need another grizzled competitor with unfinished business on the big stage, nobody is better-qualified for one last dance than ballroom champion Mark Ramprakash.

At 39, Ramps may have his best foxtrots behind him, but after unfurling another ton for Surrey yesterday, his batting average is now above 100 for the third consecutive summer - and he has previous against the Aussies at The Oval.

In his desperately unfulfilled Test career, one of only two Ramprakash tons came against the Aussies in Kennington eight years ago and he averages 42.40 against the old enemy.

If the selectors turn round and claim that Trescothick or Ramprakash are desperate picks, England fans shortchanged at Headingley are entitled to retort that these are desperate times.

Who else? Rob Key has waited four-and-a-half years for another chance, while Jonathan Trott almost made the cut last week when Freddie Flintoff was declared unfit.

No disrespect, but ticketless punters are unlikely to climb up the Oval's famous gasholder to watch a Trott debut.

Woe betide 'Dusty' Miller (left) and his wise men if they stick by the Headingley dunces... and they produce another abject surrender.

Work it out for yourselves, chaps, because matron will be doing her rounds again before the month is out.

LANGER LASHES ENGLAND

England's cricketers were stunned by harsh words from Justin Langer in an email to the Australian coach.

The former Aussie opener (above), who now captains Somerset, picked the England team and English cricket apart in a dossier sent to Tim Nielsen but now leaked to the media.

In it he refers to James Anderson as 'a bit of a pussy', he claims English players have no belief in themselves and get lazy and flat if things go against them.

Andrew Strauss said: "Over the last nine months or so, I would contest that we're soft."

Are these the men to save the Ashes?

RAMPRAKASH

RUNS: 1209 AVERAGE: 100.75

TRESCOTHICK

RUNS: 1330 AVERAGE: 78.23

TROTT

RUNS: 1181 AVERAGE: 90.84

KEY

RUNS: 897 AVERAGE: 49.83

HEADINGLEY HORROR SHOWS

1993 Graham Gooch quits as captain after England, already two down with three to play, are annihilated by an innings and 148 runs following Aussies' monster 653-4 declared.

2008 England's masterstroke of picking Darren Pattinson, an Aussie roofer born in Grimsby, backfires horribly and South Africa win by 10 wickets.

1995 West Indies spoil Darren Gough's homecoming party, after his promising first Ashes tour, with a nine-wicket rout.

1975 Campaigners of armed robber George Davis dig up the pitch and pour oil on it, wiping out the last day's play with Australia chasing a record 445 to win.