PETER HAYTER

@phaytercricket

Talent-spotting: Marcus Trescothick in action during his England debut against the West Indies in August 2000
PICTURE: Getty Images

Sceptics who believe the makeup of the new England selection panel of Ed Smith, AN Other, various scouts and HAL 9000, the computer from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, raises the possibility of a dangerous over-reliance on statistics and irrefutable logic might care to offer them two words of advice: Marcus Trescothick.
In Arthur C Clarke’s original novel, HAL, which is short for Heuristically programmed Algorithmic co...