Gough Toils to Prove His Test Case

England are so convinced of the value of rest for their fast bowlers that to find Darren Gough busting a gut for Yorkshire in sapping heat yesterday in the hope of proving his fitness for next week's first Test against South Africa did not quite add up.

If Gough emerges from Yorkshire's championship match with Durham exhausted but triumphant, England might fear that after such an onerous workload he does not have the resilience to survive back-to-back Test matches. Had he not bowled at all, they would have feared exactly the same thing.

Gough's England resurgence in the NatWest Series was wonderfully uplifting stuff, considering his knee is now so hollow that a family of bats are rumored to be clinging to what is left of his cartilage.

England's selectors, who begin their deliberations today, are right to fret about whether Gough can survive the less regimented rhythms of a five-day Test. Their first inclination would be to face South Africa with a fast-bowling quartet of James Anderson, Andrew Flintoff, Richard Johnson and Steve Harmison. But if they as much as name Gough in the squad, he will arrive with the wind behind him.

Gough's best outcome would have been to enjoy a bit of a Durham jolly, picking up a shoal of wickets on a Chester-le-Street pitch responding to his every need. Life was not that easy. The pitch gleamed benignly, and the day was so enervating that the workmen finishing off the south-west terrace were pushed to average a brick an hour.

He bowled 18 overs, in four spells, and took one for 77. This morning, he will roll out of bed with some trepidation. Over in Blackpool, Flintoff and Anderson, instructed by England to put their feet up, were enjoying a more candy-floss lifestyle.

Yorkshire had made 448, and even the last-wicket pair put on 66. Durham barely escaped the follow-on, but it was 12 overs before Gough took his only wicket, ending a laborious half-century from his namesake, Michael Gough.

Yuvraj Singh had day-dreamily missed an opportunity at slip the previous ball, but Gough found the edge again and Yuvraj, his concentration restored, this time held a diving catch to his left.

Gough was even overshadowed by a raw fast-bowling duel between Shoaib Akhtar and Steve Kirby. Shoaib's beamer caused Kirby to stomp furiously down the pitch in red-headed retribution, all apologies rejected. Next over, hit in the chest, he bounced up at the count of three like a hack boxer. Late in the day, he got Shoaib out hooking, and crowed with delight.

Gough has managed his injury with utmost professionalism and, in his dotage, he now bowls with brain as well as heart. What remains open to question is whether his new open-chested action, designed to reduce strain on his knee, has removed the incisiveness needed to succeed in Tests.

He had been proud of the fact that he did not wear a knee bandage during the one-day series. "Not like Johnson," he joked. But yesterday the knee support was in place in the knowledge that an arduous day lay ahead.

The last ball of his first spell brought a sniff of a wicket; Michael Gough was battered on the pad, but the Yorkshireman's desperate appeal was not upheld.

England's successful one-day summer might have had a youthful edge to it, but that will change. Alec Stewart will replace Chris Read behind the stumps for the first Test at Edgbaston, with Read's redoubtable one-day displays unlikely to gain more than a passing mention. Like James Foster before him, Read can not be sure that he will outlast Stewart. Kent's Geraint Jones, born in Brisbane, from Welsh stock, has won passing mentions from England's chairman of selectors, David Graveney, and perhaps he should begin practicing the speech about how he has always wanted to play for England.

The final batting place is likely to fall between Graham Thorpe and Anthony McGrath. McGrath did no wrong in his two Test innings against Zimbabwe, and if he does not play at Edgbaston, many will regard it as an injustice.

But South Africa are a different proposition and Thorpe's pedigree is increasingly winning favor among the England selectors.