The editor of Cricket Statistician analyses recent events

SIMON SWEETMAN

Making his Mark: Mark Butcher was the last Englishman to make a first-innings Test hundred at the Gabba, in 1998

By the time you read this, the team will be picked and we will have some idea of who the selectors see as England’s No.3 for the winter. The problem arises because of the captain’s preference for four, though it maybe takes a professional to tease out the difference.
No.3 is in many ways a pseudoopener, picked as insurance against the first early wicket and a minicrisis. If four comes in wi...