Sport - Cricket

Trescothick slams century

By Ted Corbett

BIRMINGHAM May 31 While the noise of the first World Cup tie reverberated to all corners of the planet — watched by perhaps a half a billion souls — the most important cricket match on earth today continued pleasantly in the greenest corner of this industrial city, causing no more than a tiny ripple. By tea England had lost only one wicket for 274 runs, was 294 for two, and 132 ahead of Sri Lanka.

Marcus Trescothick out just before tea for 161 when he was apparently set for his first double hundred in his 24th Test. Searching for a total big enough to enable them to win without batting again, England lost Michael Vaughan after an hour but 92 of the 163 needed to pass the Sri Lankan total had already been scored and Trescothick was set for his third Test hundred. By lunch he and Mark Butcher had advanced to 146 for one; 122 scored off 30 overs. Still all eyes were on Muttiah Muralitharan.

He wheeled away for most of the morning from the media centre end while the crowd, fed stories that he is celebrating this tour of England and his recovery from his shoulder injury by unveiling a mystery ball. They looked for it in vain.

Shane Warne flies into this country regularly and always has a zooter, a ripper or a new top spinner in his armoury; but these are magician's tricks as visible to the man in the main stand as the emperor's clothes and about as effective. Don't misunderstand me. They are both great bowlers and you lose concentration while batting against them at your peril as Vaughan found in the 22nd over.

He smashed the first ball away for four and fancied repeating the shot. But, and how often has this happened to a careless batsmen, when he launched his sweep he discovered that his stroke was not quite right and the ball leapt to fine leg where Sanath Jayasuriya dived to complete a running catch. There was no need for Vaughan's impetuosity.

Runs were coming freely, only Murali was giving cause for concern and on a fine, breezy spring second day of this Test, England was in command. "All these points belong to the other chap,'' they say in snooker when someone duffs an easy shot and his opponent cleans up. Vaughan must have sat in the dressing room furious at his lapse while Butcher, an imperturbable character since his magnificent hundred at Headingley last summer made him a permanent member of the England elite, mopped up the easy runs. At lunch he was 24 and Trescothick 68 and an hour after he was

47 and Trescothick 90 without the hint of a mistake.

This pitch is even easier than that monster at Lord's and with more pace than the cursed strip at St. John's so that run-scoring is a delight. Larwood or McGrath, Warne or Ramadhin might have bought wickets but it was difficult to see where Sri Lanka's next wicket lay. Murali screamed only

twice before tea — although he threatened to when he fell on his shoulder — and that is the true measurement of this batsman's heaven. Trescothick's hundred, soon after 200 went up, came in three and a half hours with 17 fours off 169 balls. A line of spectators did an impromptu conga but Trescothick must have thought, as he celebrated with a wide grin, that it was the easiest of his life. He rubbed the lesson in with two fours in a row and then a six straight down the ground, all off Jayasuriya. While Trescothick went from 90 to 120 in 35 minutes Butcher made two, an extension of his six-hour match-saving century at Lord's. He went to fifty off 132 balls with his eighth four, a handsome shot through the covers.

Trescothick hit another six even straighter as he reached his highest Test score, the stand became the highest for any wicket by England against Sri Lanka and when his third six took him beyond 150 we all wondered if this pitch was the easiest at Edgbaston in its hundred years of Test cricket; but Peter May, David Gower, Ian Botham and Mike Gatting have all made runs on similar pitches.

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