A QUICK brain is the most important quality that any cricket captain can have, but if Marcus Trescothick had been quicker on his feet this time two years ago, the probability is that he, not Michael Vaughan, would be leading England in the Test series against South Africa starting a week today.

While Vaughan’s batting blossomed gloriously in Australia, Trescothick’s shrank and withered like an unwatered plant as Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee exposed sleepy footwork and systematically undermined his confidence. When Nasser Hussain resigned the next summer, the consequence was that there was only one serious candidate to succeed him.

Everyone close to the England dressing-room, none more so than Hussain and Duncan Fletcher, the coach, has always spoken well of Trescothick’s sheer professionalism. Before the winter’s cricket in 2002-03, the feeling was that the next captain would come from Somerset rather than Yorkshire.

Vaughan has proved a wise and worthy choice, but Trescothick has been an integral part, as an opening batsman and increasingly impressive catcher at first slip, of the success that has followed, especially since his monumental double hundred against South Africa at the Oval last year. Since then, England have won 75 per cent of their 16 Tests, losing only once, in Colombo almost 12 months ago.

In that match, a tired Trescothick’s seemingly infallible hands at slip suddenly let him down and a duck in the second innings presaged another disappointing away series, in the Caribbean this year.

The challenge for the vice-captain on this trip, having made his customary good start in a minor match with 85 in Randjetsfontein on Wednesday, is to close the gap between his performances at home and overseas.

“I don’t know why it is,” he said yesterday, before the team practised at the Wanderers for this weekend’s three-day match against South Africa in Potchefstroom, “but this time I’m hoping the hard work I’ve done on my game will pay off.”

In 52 Test innings overseas, Trescothick has contributed a modest 1,609 runs at an average of 32. He made centuries in Galle in 2000 and in Dhaka against Bangladesh last year, but that is all. In England, there have been six hundreds and his 2,373 Test runs have been scored at an average of just on 54, the record of a truly outstanding player.

At his best, Trescothick has a simple, reliable method, playing the ball close to his body down the line of the stumps and showing the bowler the maker’s name. More than most, however, this calm and solid West Countryman is prone to periods either of purple or black.

It is seldom evident from appearances. He looks as introspective when he is dealing in powerful, cleanly hit boundaries as he is when his feet are rooted to the spot. Not since Geoff Boycott has an England opening batsman worked so assiduously on his own technique or enjoyed the business of batting in the nets so much.

Fletcher insisted that he had a complete break at the end of the season to recharge his batteries, but while his colleagues were acclimatising for South Africa in Namibia and Zimbabwe and Stephen Harmison, another of the rested stalwarts, was content to train at Newcastle United FC without going near a net, Trescothick relished the chance to examine his method again for hours on end under the eye of Matthew Maynard in a Cardiff indoor centre.

“It was an opportunity to come back after a break and make my game more solid again,” he said. “It was a case of remembering things I used to do well and grooving them. Making sure when I go out to bat that I know what I am doing and can concentrate simply on concentrating. You don’t want to be thinking about whether your feet are moving or what position you are getting into.”