What will be particularly disconcerting is that the batting has been the strongest and most consistent part of England’s cricket this summer, and the loss of their leading player, with a badly fractured left thumb, will mean that even this area now needs attention.There are two other batsmen who will need monitoring this weekend, Mark Butcher, who is playing his first game after knee surgery, and Graham Thorpe who has not played since he was originally left out of England’s one-day side with a sore ankle. Both, however, expect to be fit.One man’s loss though, is another man’s gain, and the batsman who gets an opportunity, because of Trescothick’s misfortune will, like Alec Stewart at the start of the season – when he replaced James Foster, who had broken his arm – attempt to grab it with both hands.John Crawley, Mark Ramprakash, Ian Bell, Robert Key and Andrew Strauss, will all be considered by the selectors, and each will be aware that selection will offer them a chance to secure a place on the ultimate trip for an English cricketer, an Ashes tour to Australia.Even at full strength, Hussain and Fletcher would have been worried about how England’s bowlers would fare against a batting line-up as talented and delicious as India’s. But with Andrew Caddick already ruled out of the first Test with a rib injury, Darren Gough, yet to prove he is fully fit despite successfully coming through the recent one-day series, and Alex Tudor, England’s man of the match in their last Test, complaining about sore shins, the omens are not good.Out of Gough and Tudor, the Yorkshireman is the likelier to play because Tudor, even though he continues to impress each time he plays, is yet truly to convince England’s management that he can tough it out through heavy international schedules.The failure of either of these to prove their fitness would give the selectors another dilemma. Do they go back to Derbyshire’s Dominic Cork or go for the raw, wild but frighteningly fast bowling talent of Glamorgan’s Simon Jones?Hussain, who in the end has the final say, will push for Crawley and Cork, but it would be wise to remember what happened last Saturday at Lord’s, when a 20-year-old and a 21-year-old left everyone awe-inspired. It would be stirring to see two young England players given the chance to perform as admirably..

Everton are ready to push through a deal for the Brazilian striker, Juliano Rodrigo, as Brian McBride’s hopes of a transfer to Goodison Park fade. Moyes is trying to cut through the red tape to see if he needs to pay a fee to Botafogo, the Rio de Janiero-based club Rodridgo left recently.McBride, a success for the United States at the World Cup, wants to leave Columbus Crew and team up with Moyes, under whom he played in a brief spell at Preston. However, Major League Soccer, which holds the United States players’ registrations, is holding out for a fee of around £1m for the 30-year-old.Everton’s hopes of signing Rustu Recber have been dashed after the Turkey goalkeeper ruled out a move. He has been persuaded to stay by his club, Fenerbahce, and by his wife, who is happy in Istanbul.Benito Carbone will receive pleas from his Bradford City team-mates to take a cut-price pay-off amid fears about the club’s future. The Italian striker is haggling over a severance deal.Bradford have offered Carbone, who is on a £40,000-a-week contract, just £800,000 of the £3m-plus owed to him.

David Wetherall, the club’s PFA representative, has urged his colleagues, who are divided on the issue, to contact Carbone with requests to settle. If the matter is not resolved Bradford may not be able to get out of administration.Carbone’s advisers have put new proposals to the club and the PFA, but these have yet to be accepted and the huge financial hurdle is still to be crossed and could yet bring Bradford down.. Standing outside the clubhouse at Muirfield yesterday, John Daly muttered that he had nothing to say after struggling to three over in the Open Championship. He fiddled with the ball pocket of his golf bag, glanced across at a lady who turned out to be his wife, and slouched off at her side. As you may have guessed, Daly was disgruntled.
Three over was not where Daly had expected to be.

Even if the pin positions were less than generous, the course had not been tricked up. It was out there in front of him and he thought he had the game. Not the old Daly game, the drives that took off like Exocets, sometimes splitting the fairway at prodigious distance, sometimes disappearing into areas of golf courses with which club members were not familiar. The demons held at bay, Daly is a different man and a different golfer.At Muirfield in 1992, when Daly appeared for the first time in The Open, his reputation went before him Crowds gathered in expectation.