WHEN Mark Butcher was left out of Surrey’s opening championship match of the season, against Lancashire on Good Friday, he must have felt something like the Zimbabwe High Commissioner at Lord’s on Thursday. He was present but not wanted. McC always invite the senior diplomat of the opposition country to the opening day of a Lord’s Test, but the club’s president, Sir Tim Rice, snubbed President Mugabe’s envoy by refusing to have him in his box.

Butcher revealed that being left out of the Surrey team had been “a bitter pill to swallow,” particularly in view of his hundred in England’s last Test, in Sydney in early January. “The situation at Surrey does make it a little difficult,” he said. “You have nine batsmen vying for six places. I was obviously upset by my omission at the time, and made one or two heated comments. The selection was made for the right reasons, for Surrey County Cricket Club, so I can’t really complain. Everything’s been resolved now.”

Butcher returned for Surrey’s next championship match in place of Graham Thorpe, who could not get back into the side until this week.

From being under pressure to keep his place going into the Sydney Test, as he himself admitted — Butcher can now enjoy security of tenure for the rest of the summer. “It was very nice to get that hundred in Sydney as I’d heard my name was on the shortlist for those that might not make the cut,” he declared. “There was a clamour for new faces going into this series, but I think I’ve now earned my place in this side.”

“It was really hard on Thursday when Marcus (Trescothick) and I managed to do alot of the hard work,” Butcher said. “Their guys put it in the right area a lot of times. We were fortunate to be only three down at the end. As for the lbw, it was bloody close — Hawkeye had it hitting middle and leg. I thought maybe it was clipping leg but those are the breaks you get sometimes. Conditions were very favourable for bowlers, but we managed to ride it out and it was slightly easier today.”

Having made a hundred this time last year against Sri Lanka at Lord’s, Butcher, statisticians now believe, is the first man to score separate Test hundreds at headquarters in May. He was still far from pleased with his dismissal, no doubt having set his sights on passing his highest Test score of 173 not out against Australia at Headingley in 2001.

“It was no consolation to have got out to such a magnificent catch, although I did have a slice of good fortune with that catch that went down (when he had made 36 on Thursday),” he said. “Our target was always to get 400 and I was a bit disappointed to go before we got there. I thought Anthony McGrath batted really well after a couple of anxious moments. He played some absolutely wonderful shots.”

McGrath, watched by his parents, described the day as the best of his life. “I got a really good reception as I walked out through the Long Room to bat, and although there were a few nerves, I tried to enjoy the whole experience,” he said. “Playing at Headingley, it was nice to bat on a wicket that doesn’t go up and down.”

He also gave credit to Kevin Sharp, his new batting coach. “I wouldn’t have been here but for Kevin. He changed a few technical things, in particular my pre-delivery movement, which is now earlier and gets my feet moving quicker.”

Like Michael Vaughan on Thursday, McGrath was unfortunate to be bowled off his pad by a ball that would have missed leg stump. Sean Ervine, the bowler, will always remember the moment, for it was his maiden Test wicket.

Geoff Marsh, the Zimbabwe coach, whose daughter, Michelle, is Ervine’s girlfriend, could not conceal his delight on the dressing-room balcony.

The other maiden Test wicket to be taken yesterday — when James Anderson bowled Mark Vermeulen — led to a very different reaction from an interested Zimbabwean onlooker.

Vermeulen’s father, a dentist who now lives in Salisbury, Wiltshire, had cancelled appointments over the first two days of the match to be present. He had also gone to Hove last weekend when his son was 194 not out overnight, and seen him add only four more runs before getting out.