THEY are the kind of people you would not want to be stuck behind on the motorway on the way to Leeds — one trundling along at just more than 70mph and showing no inclination to abandon his preferred lane, the other determined not to let anyone through and bloody-minded enough to put his foot down every now and again to make his point.

They do not fit the glitzy, whiz-kid image that the marketing men are trying so hard to promote, but when it came to the crunch at Headingley yesterday Martin Bicknell and Gary Kirsten showed that there is still no substitute for the old-fashioned ways when it comes to playing Test cricket.

James Kirtley may have taken South Africa’s first wicket through Graeme Smith’s overeagerness to impose himself after taking the bold decision to bat first, but it was Bicknell who set the standard for the more youthful members of the England attack in his first Test for ten years.

His first ball was right on the spot, his second ball was too good for Herschelle Gibbs and his first six overs were so demanding that Jacques Kallis was pressured into driving a catch to extra cover. Bicknell finished his opening spell with two for 12 from nine overs, six of them maidens, and although he did not pick up another wicket (he denied that a “tight hamstring” had anything to do with that), his figures showed how shabbily he had been treated by the selectors for all those years.

“I definitely knew I’d been away,” he said. “Things have changed in a big way — Nasser Hussain and Alec Stewart are the only survivors from the last time I played — but it was great to be back and I really enjoyed it. I was a little bit nervous, as I anticipated I would be, but when you get a wicket in your first over it just gives you a nice settling feeling and I was able to relax after that and just bowl as I wanted to.

“The last thing I wanted to do was make a fool of myself. Over the last ten years I’ve had so many people championing me and saying that I should be playing and now I’ve had the chance to reward them by putting in a good performance.”

Not that he has ruled out the possibility of playing another Test on his home ground. “It is not impossible that I could play at the Oval,” he said. “Obviously if I take a couple of wickets tomorrow and another five in the second innings, try keeping me out.”

It was just a pity that Bicknell could not dislodge Kirsten before he settled into the kind of innings he has played so many times. Bicknell had conceded half of his runs in two uncharacteristic balls to Kirsten when he beat him with four superb balls in succession.

Any one of them could have got him out and the fact that they did not showed what a true Test batsman Kirsten is. Such players have that rare ability to avoid getting out to the good balls and then make sure they go on to punish the bad ones. Kirsten bats at No 3 these days, but he had given an object lesson in how to open the batting at Headingley, not least to his captain.

“Graeme Smith is a man of extremes,” he said. “Either he makes me wait all day to bat or I get in the first over, so my only thought was to try and get something going. A lot of people would say that suits my game — play terribly, look horrible and hang in, and I was able to do that. It got easier in the second and third sessions. I don’t think I’ve seen a ball seam as much in my Test career as it did in the first session, but then it eased up a bit.

“I don’t think 260 for seven is a great total in Test-match cricket on any wicket, but I certainly think that if we can get to 300 that will be competitive and keep us in the game.”

Statistically speaking

MARTIN BICKNELL is not flashy. He is the last person you would expect to go round breaking records. But yesterday he did, albeit an unwelcome one: for the most number of matches between Test caps. England have played 114 times since Bicknell’s last Test, against Australia at Edgbaston in 1993. That was Mike Atherton’s first as captain and his team included Graham Gooch, John Emburey and Mark Ilott; only Nasser Hussain and Alec Stewart survived until this match, along with Bicknell. The way the Surrey bowler played yesterday suggested he had been away from international cricket scarcely ten minutes, not ten years.

MOST MATCHES BETWEEN TEST APPEARANCES: 114: Martin Bicknell (Eng) 1993-2003. 104: Younis Ahmed (Pak) 1969-87. 103: Derek Shackleton (Eng) 1951-63. 96: Les Jackson (Eng) 1949-61. 86: Pat Pocock (Eng) 1976-84.