Nasser Hussain lost his place on England's selection panel when he relinquished the role as one-day captain, but if he was not officially party to discussions over the Test squad at the Belfry yesterday, he is not the sort to let his views go unheard.

Hussain was promised an input into team selection when he stood down from the panel after the World Cup. Next week's first Test against South Africa at Edgbaston is the first time those assurances have been tested.

The Hussain-Duncan Fletcher axis that has dominated English cricket for the past three years has had a natural bias towards experience. Those who have done it are prized, sometimes excessively so, and those showing youthful promise soon discover that it is not a panacea.

If the Hussain-Fletcher alliance remains as strong as ever, then Darren Gough, certainly, and Graham Thorpe, probably, will join two more wise old heads, Alec Stewart and Mark Butcher, when the squad for Edgbaston is announced on Five Live at lunchtime today. Final deliberations over the composition of the squad will take place this morning.

There is a theory doing the rounds that Hussain was peeved when his old mate Thorpe, in the throes of a divorce, changed his mind at the last minute over touring Australia last winter and that, having been left in the lurch, England's Test captain will be reluctant to advocate his return. But Hussain is a pragmatist and whatever frustration he felt at the time is unlikely to colour his thinking if he believes that Thorpe is in the state of mind to produce the weight of middle-order runs needed to outlast South Africa.

South Africa have been prematurely rubbished after a notably slack batting display in the NatWest Series final. If South African sides can traditionally claim anything, it is that they give nothing away easily. They will be anxious to return to first principles at Edgbaston.

In the unlikely event that one of the new young names survives - a show of faith, for all his wretched NatWest Series form, in Jim Troughton for example - then the influence of a new selector, Rod Marsh, a vigorous believer in youth, could have begun to take effect. Marsh's Australian background tells him that talent should be tested at the earliest opportunity.

Gough failed to produce the match-winning performance for Yorkshire against Durham at Chester-le-Street that would have demanded his selection but, after bowling 18 overs on Wednesday, he was without a discernible limp.

The feeling within the Yorkshire dressing room is that Gough is a likelier inclusion than Anthony McGrath, whose two excellent Test displays against Zimbabwe may not ultimately carry enough sway to retain his place in the XI.

Most intriguing of all will be Hussain's mood of captaincy after more than three months' break. At the start of England's abortive World Cup challenge last winter, he chose to spend an afternoon playing golf rather than lead England in a warm-up match in the South African township of Motherwell. It was suggested that it might have been a misjudgment. "Tell it to someone who cares," he snapped.

A displeased Hussain is a beast to be reckoned with. His eyes blaze with indignation, and his nose tips disdainfully to the heavens. His natural inclination is to look for victory rather than compromise.

Hussain remains comfort ably England's best option as Test captain, even if Michael Vaughan's successful introduction as one-day skipper has quickened speculation that he will soon also displace Hussain in the Test role. Its purpose is to convey the general strain Hussain was under last winter and how, in Gough's vivid phrase at Lord's last week, in his desperation to succeed, he had started to "captain by intimidation".

Separate Test and one-day captains can work, but only if both players can survive the media's insatiable desire to present them as rivals, where one man's success automatically undermines the other's authority.

Hussain chose not to contact Vaughan during the NatWest Series. He knew what he would have preferred - the chance to grow into a new job and not feel that his every move was being monitored. Now he is back in the job. And what he needs to feel at home is some runs under his belt.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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