Dominic Cork, the new Derbyshire captain who missed much of last season through injury, was named yesterday in a squad of 12 for the first Test which starts at Edgbaston on Thursday. Also included is Mark Butcher, the Surrey left-hander, who will partner Mike Atherton at the top of the order, and Mark Ealham, who is likely to bat at seven as the fourth seamer.

Robert Croft is the sole concession to the spinner's art, which makes sense on a pitch tipped to be seamer-friendly. The 12th man will be one of Ealham, Cork and Dean Headley, with the likelihood that Headley, who has not performed at his best this season, will miss out.

Lunch may be for wimps, as Gordon Gekko famously would have it, but the influence of a Chesterfield cheese salad last Friday should not be underestimated. David Lloyd, the England coach, had made the trip to Queen's Park to watch Cork and by lunchtime, when in nine ordinary overs on a helpful pitch the bowler had failed to take a wicket, the report that Lloyd would have taken to Saturday's selection meeting might have recommended the backburner. But after the interval it was a different tale as Cork took five Leicestershire wickets for 32.

Cork's 19-match international career has been a salutary lesson for anyone who would take success for granted. His entrance in 1995 with seven wickets in the first innings of his debut against West Indies at Lord's, and a high-lass hat-trick (Richie Richardson, Junior Murray and Carl Hooper) at Old Trafford, could scarcely have been more dramatic.

Here, we thought, was a cricketer for the modern age with his face paint, theatrical appealing to umpires and swagger bordering on bumptiousness. But barely 18 months later, in Christchurch, he had played the last of his Tests as injury and a private life in turmoil brought him down.

Now he is back to fitness after a hernia operation last season, a more rounded character harnessed by the captaincy of a county club who have sufficient troubles of their own; and in the modern parlance he is "shaping" the ball nicely. The South Africans, who have suffered at his hand before, will not be happier for his inclusion.

"I'm surprised and delighted to get a foot back on the ladder," Cork said yesterday. "And now I have to get into the final 11 and stay there.

"If I hadn't been picked I would have been upset but not angry, as I once would have been. I'm a lot more relaxed than I was. Captaincy has helped, because it's easy to neglect your own game when in charge, so I've worked that bit harder to compensate."

The bulk of the debate at the selection meeting centred on the openers. Atherton, as an accomplished and brave player who has previously got up the South African pipe, was always going to keep his place once he had begun to show a semblance of form. So the talk was of his potential partner.

Of the four names that had been mentioned - Butcher, Darren Maddy, Nick Knight and Steve James - realistically it had been boiled down to the first two.

Maddy's case had been made by his prolific scoring on last winter's `A' tour to Kenya and Sri Lanka, and a dynamic start to this season for Leicestershire. He is a young man confident in his ability, is a good technician and fields brilliantly.

Butcher, however, has several points in his favour, quite apart from being the new England captain's brother-in-law. He made his Test debut against Australia last season, playing in five of the six matches and scoring 87 in the second innings at Lord's. His winter was mixed, with a first-ball nought in the abandoned match in Jamaica (when in fairness he was only brought into the side with the toss imminent and on an appalling surface) and a pair in the final match in Antigua. But he batted with real character and skill for two-and-a-half hours to steer England to a win in the third Test in Trinidad, has played well this season, averaging almost 80, and is deemed to be coming to terms with the need to play long innings.

The key to his inclusion is his left-handedness, which gives England the classical combination. A left-hander and a right-hander rotating the strike can upset the line of the best bowlers; and the man currently in the top branches of the ratings tree, Allan Donald, bowls from wide of the crease and slants the ball away from lefthanders without alternative, so he dislikes it more than many.