Since Alec Stewart retired in 2003, England have been engaged in a frustrating search for a wicketkeeper-batsman who can perform both roles to the highest standards.

Geraint Jones hung around for a while, but has slipped off the radar. Chris Read was seen as the natural alternative to Jones, but failed to convince with the bat. Matt Prior, having initially looked the long-term solution, has been dropped from the Test and one-day squads after a disappointing tour to Sri Lanka behind the stumps.

As the thorny wicketkeeping dilemma continues to trouble the finest minds in English cricket, Phil Mustard, who arrived in New Zealand yesterday with England’s one-day squad, thinks that he may have the answers. Keeping wicket? “It’s nothing too technical, all you have to do is catch the ball,” he says. And the batting? “If I see it, I hit it.”

These straightforward remarks should not be seen as mere oversimplification, rather the attempt of a gifted ball-player to keep his mind free of the technical jargon that can threaten a natural talent. “I do analyse my game but I don’t look into it too deeply,” he said. “I might spend five or ten minutes and say, ‘OK, I could have done this or that differently’, but I’m not one for looking at TV screens for hours. I don’t overcomplicate things.”

Mustard, 25, the Durham wicketkeeper, will be England’s first choice behind the stumps and opening batsman for the one-day leg of their tour to New Zealand, which begins with warm-up matches against Canterbury in Christchurch on Saturday and Sunday. He is likely to open the innings in the two Twenty20 internationals, a week tomorrow in Auckland and two days later in Christchurch, before the five-match one-day series begins in Wellington on February 9.

In his first five one-day internationals in Sri Lanka in October, Mustard gave occasional glimpses of his explosive left-handed strokeplay. His highest score was only 28, but he scored at a run a ball and gave England’s innings early impetus. “I need to bat for longer, clearly, but I must have done something right because they’ve picked me again,” he said.

Tim Ambrose, the uncapped Warwickshire wicketkeeper, has been picked for the one-day and Test squads. Many observers feel that Ambrose’s ability to play long innings – he has made four first-class hundreds to Mustard’s two – makes him the favourite to succeed Prior in the Test team, Mustard recognises that the one-day matches give him the chance to steal a march. “I’ve been told that if I make enough runs in the one-day series, I’ve a good chance of making the Test side,” he says. “So that’s got to be my aim.”

It seems fitting that Mustard has taken his first steps on the international stage just as the curtain falls on Adam Gilchrist’s career. Gilchrist changed for ever the role of the wicketkeeper in international cricket, leaving every other country pining for a glove-man who could bat aggressively at No 7 in Test matches and open the innings in one-day cricket. Mustard is the latest to audition for the role as England’s version and has in his favour a reference from Shane Warne, who was reminded last summer by Mustard’s clean hitting of “a young Adam Gilchrist”.

Thanks to the impact made by Gilchrist, wicketkeepers are now often considered as batsmen first and glove-men second and that was the order in which Mustard learnt his skills with Hylton in the Durham Coast League. “I was always a batsman until I was 15, but my older brother was a ’keeper and in one Under18 game he couldn’t keep, so I had a go, I just wanted to dive around and get dirty,” he said. “It all went fairly well and 18 months later I was ’keeping for Durham’s second team. I just really enjoy ’keeping.”

If Mustard can continue to enjoy his cricket at the highest level, his uncomplicated approach could help to solve one of England’s most pressing problems.