Six-times runner-up Jimmy White will face the Welshman Dominic Dale.There are four Crucible debutants this year, including Murphy. Robin Hull will become the first player from Finland to compete in the televised stage when he meets the world No 14 Graeme Dott.Redcar’s Mike Dunn will play Matthew Stevens, the runner-up two years ago, and Robert Milkins faces the Dubliner Fergal O’Brien.. Mark Butcher will sing songs and play his guitar at the special service the England team are holding for Ben Hollioake, the Surrey and England all-rounder killed in a car crash last weekend. The private get-together is the idea of management, who are hoping it will provide comfort to those unable to travel to Perth.
The players, minus their captain, Nasser Hussain, who will be the team’s representative at today’s memorial service in Perth, will be dressed in their tour uniform of blazer and tie.An accomplished musician, Butcher, one of three Surrey players on tour in New Zealand, was close to the younger Hollioake and his tribute will no doubt help him overcome the disappointment of not being able to attend today’s service.With at least 10 Surrey players in attendance, including Alec Stewart, Alex Tudor, Ian Salisbury, Martin Bicknell and Ian Ward, the Surrey contingent here have been understandably upset at not being able to attend. According to coach Duncan Fletcher most of the squad wanted to go, but with only a few seats available for the flights, in what is a tight schedule due to a Saturday start in the final Test, it was felt by the team management committee that the side should be represented by the captain alone.Visas too were a complication, with Australia far more stringent than most Commonwealth countries towards British citizens seeking sudden entry. But that has not appeased the likes of Butcher, a sensitive soul desperately looking for an outlet through which to vent his grief.Hussain, who is on the management committee, alongside Marcus Trescothick, Ashley Giles, Graham Thorpe and Fletcher, has taken Hollioake’s England blazer with him. Apparently, it had been left with Malcolm Ashton, the team statistician after the recent one-day series, so that it could be returned to England while Hollioake holidayed in Perth.The England skipper caught a flight at 5am Wednesday morning from Auckland, but with a four-hour time difference in his favour, he would have arrived in plenty of time for the service. He leaves at noon the next day and will be back in New Zealand just after midnight on Thursday, some 34 hours before the start of the Third Test at Eden Park. Although not ideal preparation for an important Test, his steely resolve is such that he will not let it affect him.There was some speculation whether Hussain should wear a black tie for the memorial service or simply settle for wearing his England one.
As England captain, he is expected to do the right thing by a wide cross section of people and it was interesting to hear during the recent Test that there were dozens of emails from outraged TV viewers watching the match about him batting in the second innings without a black armband.As he had worn one the previous day, and again when England fielded on the final afternoon, it must simply have been an oversight. Players use up to four different shirts a day and one must have slipped through being ringed with black masking tape.Since news of the tragedy broke Hussain has been superb. Test cricket has its place, but next to the premature death of a young man close to the side, it is frivolous. Walking the tightrope of keeping his team going in the match and showing the right amount of emotion broadened his palette as a leader of men and Fletcher felt it was done with great sensitivity.”It only really hit me on the plane to Auckland that it’s a catch-22 situation,” said Fletcher “If you don’t show emotion, you are seen as callous.
If you do show some, the side folds a bit with you.”A man whose body language gives little away, Fletcher felt his side had performed well in very difficult circumstances. “We played some good cricket, but what is most pleasing is that we’ve done it for the second Test in a row. Following on from the two good Tests we had in India, we are beginning to show some consistency in our performances.”Most pleasing for the coach is the scoring rate, which has been around four runs an over “It is something we have talked about,” admitted Fletcher. “When we bat, it is about having positive intent and showing you want to come at bowlers.”That’s what Andrew Flintoff did and although his mighty smiting gave England even longer to bowl New Zealand out than they’d planned for a dead pitch thwarted them. With Hollioake’s death still a factor for many in Hussain’s team a similar result in Auckland will not to be sniffed at.