Not long after the selectors had announced their provisional squad for the current one-day internationals, a message was passed to me, apparently from The Dazzler. "Tell Selvey," it went "that he can stick it up his arse."
The England selectors have to decide whether to trust medical advice claiming Marcus Trescothick will recover sufficiently to withstand the Ashes, says Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times.
His wife Hayley’s post-natal depression after the birth of their daughter, Ellie, in April 2005 is thought to have contributed to his sudden inability to cope with the strain of being away from home last winter, after a constant succession of high-profile appearances for England at home and away.
Richard Hobson feels that the accident to Trescothick's father-in-law could have been the turning point.
Last November he considered leaving the Pakistan tour when his father-in-law, John, suffered serious head injuries after falling off a ladder at home. Trescothick was put through the distressing experience of watching CCTV footage of the accident via his mobile phone. It is easy now to imagine that as a turning point.
Instead of pouring scorn on Trescothick's request to skip next month's Champions Trophy in India, he deserves our compassion, says Ian Botham in the Daily Mirror.
Let's face it: nobody will care about Trescothick skipping a superfluous one-day competition if England come home with the Ashes in the New Year. Surely that's what we all want - and if it takes a bit of leeway from the compassionate society for Tresco to join the party, let's give him the breathing space he needs and leave the cynicism for later.
