It seems to be generally agreed that there are real problems with the openers. Both Trescothick and Vaughan started down the order and were turned into openers. I remember Trescothick generally batting at around 6 or 7 for Somerset and everyone remembers (with horror), Vaughan's welcome to Test cricket. He batted at 4 and watched as Atherton (0), Butcher (1, opening), Hussain (0) and Stewart (0) combined with an Allan Donald wide to leave England 2-4. Vaughan went on to second top score with 33 (top score was Freddy with 38 and the 56 runs that Vaughan and Freddy put on together for the 6th wicket represented practically half of England's final total.

Since becoming captain he has scored 814 runs in 13 Tests, at an average of 33.91 and has 2 centuries and 3 fifties. His Goatman median is 22 - i.e. exactly half his scores have been 22 or lower.

In 26 innings (including 2 not outs), he's only been dismissed in single figures 5 times.

7 times from 10-19 (one was a not out)

6 times from 20-29

3 times from 30-49

and then the 3 fifties (one not out) and two centuries.

What is interesting is that he is almost always getting some kind of start - more than 80% of his innings he gets into double figures but, when he does, 13 out of 21 times (62%), he doesn't reach 30. If he does reach 30 he usually goes on to make a big score. In other words, something is going wrong in the early part of his innings - he gets started and then gets out. That suggests that the theory that he is being too expansive is right and that he is going for his shots too quickly.

What is striking is the contrast with his scores before he got the captaincy. In his first 31 Tests he scored 2549 runs at 51.0, with 9 centuries and 5 fifties. His Goatman median was a strikingly high 31.

Before getting the captaincy his distribution of scores was:

Single figures - 12 times (23%)
10-19 - 5 times ( 9%)
20-29 - 9 times (17%)
30-49 - 13 times (25%)
50-99 - 5 times ( 9%)
100+ - 9 times (17%)

In other words, he had a much higher proportion of failures than before taking the captaincy, but when he got started he tended to get greedy. As captain he's only passed 30 in 31% of his innings. Before becoming captain it was 51%.

This seems to lend support to the theory that the captaincy has affected his batting - he's getting his head down at the start of the innings and avoiding quick dismissals, but then tries to move up a gear too fast.

Would this be cured by dropping back down the order to number 4? I don't think so.

It also would create the problem that you start shuffling a middle order that is doing well. Why make Mark Butcher open when he's doing fine where he is? About the only way to accomodate Vaughan at 4 would be to drop Nasser Hussain and bring in another opener - presumably Strauss. Would the cure be worse than the illness? It would unsettle a very settled batting lineup, although the cynics would say that Nasser will be retiring soon anyway (we've been saying that since last July and he's still scoring runs in a crisis).

What about Marcus Trescothick?

Here ones has a big surprise. Supposedly he's been right out of form since the start of the Ashes tour. His career average is 41.2 over 47 Tests. Quite respectable. 5 hundreds, 22 fifties - a 50+ score every 1.7 Tests. Not bad at all.

Now let's look at his last 15 Tests, through his big slump. This takes us back to the 2nd Test v Zimbabwe and includes that Test, the series v South Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies, where we all agree that he has not impressed at all.

The odd thing is that for those 15 Tests, his average is 42.8 - rather better than his career average. Some slump!

He has 2 hundreds and 6 fifties, a 50+ score every 1.9 Tests - virtually identical to his career figures.

Is his slump then just a "misconception" due to the fact that he is naturally very inconsistent and mixes huges scores with failures with gay abandon and that he has just had a run of failures that happen to have fallen together?

If it is just his inconsistency that we are seeing, we may be due a string of big scores again as the dice fall the right way up for him.

I fear that this post will be greated with howls of outrage, but I have been very surprised by the results, particularly for Trescothick and what I have written in the end bears no relation to what I had intended to write at the start.

Ps: Clive, I defy to you to find a double-meaning in this post!