MARK BUTCHER, as honest and open as ever, is entitled to feel “gutted” that his series of misfortunes with injuries and careless drivers has left his place at No 3 in the England batting order in jeopardy.

As he has pointed out, he has battled through various minor injuries over the years just to make sure that he did not give anybody else the chance to muscle in on his spot, and the one time that he has not been able to drag himself onto the field, his understudy nips in with a quick double-hundred.

One man’s chagrin is another man’s delight, and Robert Key can look back on all the extra work he has reportedly put in this year, in the knowledge that it was all worth it, and be mighty satisfied with what he has achieved at Lord’s.

It has been an object lesson for anybody with international aspirations, proof that initial disappointments can be overcome. There is also a common denominator, because the kick-start to Butcher’s career against the Australians three years ago came after injuries elsewhere in the camp and a winter spent working hard in the nets.

So the selectors now have another tricky situation to sort out, and they have little time to do so, with another set of back-to-back Tests.

Can they possibly leave out Key after a double-hundred? If not, how do they reintroduce Butcher, the man whom the captain described only days ago as the team’s most consistent player over the past couple of years? While they are debating all that, the selectors might as well uncork another bottle of Chateau Ponder 2004 while they consider the state of Andrew Flintoff’s ankle and what the best course of action is for him.

The easy solution at this stage is to continue to leave Butcher out for Edgbaston, thereby giving him time to get himself going again.

Butcher’s career is a long way from over. This is nothing like the scenario of Nasser Hussain, deciding that the time has come to give way to the younger man. Butcher still has time on his side. More importantly, he has the talent, technique and temperament to continue to play a full part for England. It is a niggling worry that he has gone for 28 innings without reaching three figures since August last year, but only because we all put so much store by hundreds. It is only three months or so since his battling half-centuries in Jamaica and Port-of-Spain, on far more testing pitches than this Lord’s one, kept England ahead in those Tests.

When they are ready, the selectors might consider, too, that the Butcher technique looks better than Key’s, though the latter has dispelled any doubts about his ability to concentrate through long innings via his string of hundreds for Kent this season and the small matter of the double here.

The Flintoff story is an interesting one and has been made more so by the confusing signals coming from the England camp in the last week.

In summary: before the game he was, according to Dr Peter Gregory, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s medical man, not fit to bowl; then on day one he was then cleared fit to bowl on “specialist medical advice”, yet was not given the ball until the 76th over of the West Indies innings. By quarter to four he was on a hat-trick.

Now obviously the calcified spur that is causing the problem has not disappeared, and if Michael Vaughan can spare him from bowling duties, then it makes sense to do so. Flintoff can certainly hold his place as a batsman and slip fielder, and crowds around the country would love him to do so because of his sheer entertainment value. But those of us not privy to the full results of the medical tests are worried that this spur will cause problems just before the Ashes series next summer.

We are in the dark as to how developed the spur is and what the real prognosis is, but know that Glenn McGrath has just missed a year’s cricket after two operations on a similar problem.

By next summer, it is imperative that Flintoff is as fit as possible to fulfil his allrounder role to the best of his ability. If that means he has to resort to surgery, then the sooner the better. He, of all people, after the previous mismanagement of his hernias, should know that it is no good just hoping the problem will go away.

I hope that we can trust the medical men, the England management and Flintoff’s advisers to get this one right, and if it means that he has to miss the last part of this season, then that is much the better option than seeing him either out of or handicapped for the Ashes.

In the meantime, my team for Edgbaston would be exactly the same one that has played at Lord’s.