JAMES KIRTLEY became the third England fast bowler this season to record a five-wicket analysis in his first Test when his six for 34 at Trent Bridge yesterday earned him the man-of-the-match award and his team a 70-run victory over South Africa to level the series with two matches to play. It has not stopped the England selectors from calling up two more fast bowlers in a party of 13 for the Leeds Test starting on Thursday.

The veteran, Martin Bicknell, has a good chance of making his third Test appearance ten years after his last, at Edgbaston in 1993. His first game was played in the same series, also at Headingley, as a 24-year-old against Australia.

Kabir Ali, at 22 a dozen years junior to Bicknell, is also in the 13. He, too, could play if, as expected, Steve Harmison is ruled unfit with a calf strain and if Ashley Giles were to be left out to allow an all-seam attack, with Michael Vaughan as the spin bowler.

For Kabir this may be just a start, but Bicknell must have allowed himself the wryest of smiles when he established last night that the news was no joke. He was probably picked for Test cricket too soon and now he has been chosen when past his peak. That said, he has taken 39 championship wickets, despite missing Surrey’s first game and pulling up in another with a hamstring injury, now cured.

England selectors have had their successes with horses for the Headingley course in the past, notably Neil Mallender and Steve Watkin. Bicknell is a better bowler than either of them, having helped Surrey to win seven trophies in six seasons on his way to 971 first-class victims. At least until this year, he was, by common consent and the hard evidence of wickets taken — more than 50 in ten separate seasons — one of the most reliable fast-medium bowlers in England.

That Angus Fraser performed so well at similar pace reduced Bicknell’s chances until Fraser’s final Test in 1998-99, since when he has constantly been overlooked by the selectors, as much as anything because successive England coaches, David Lloyd and Duncan Fletcher, have had something of an obsession with speed as opposed to accuracy.

Seven wickets in Surrey’s latest victory against Nottinghamshire last week and the very success of Kirtley, no less a solid product of county cricket, must have helped Bicknell’s selection now. “I was pretty stunned,” he said. “Two or three years ago I thought I had a chance, but it didn’t happen. I have had better seasons, but I like to think I’m consistent. I swing it both ways and get good players out.”

Kabir, the first fast bowler of Asian extraction to be picked by England and a whippy fast-medium bowler with a good action, has done well all season for Worcestershire. He joined the touring team for a while in Australia from the Academy in Adelaide and he was in the one-day squad last month, winning a cap without bowling or batting.

Kirtley’s six for 34, better figures even than Shaun Pollock managed on a dry, cracked pitch at Trent Bridge, have probably assured him of a winter away. His action was reported as suspect by an International Cricket Council referee in 2001, but Ranjan Madugalle, the referee here, and the umpires had no complaints and South Africa’s captain and coach said that they had “no issue” with his wristy delivery. He simply bowled well, as he invariably does. It is quite something to have been comfortably his country’s best bowler in his first match, even at 28, but he is a seasoned professional, unlike the talented James Anderson or the still unfinished product, Harmison.

Kirtley has benefited from a policy emphasising teamwork, hard work and the best use of sports science. It is, however, the player himself who deserves the credit for the manner in which he has taken his chance. He has bowled far more overs this season, 478 now, than the other England bowlers.

A professional for seven years, he has had a long wait, but the timing of his arrival, coinciding with the best pitch of the season on which to bowl, went a long way towards making up for his misfortune at being on standby for this season’s four previous Tests.

Harmison’s inclusion at Headingley would be an unacceptable risk, both because of his suspect calf and because conditions there demand accurate bowling. At least he confirmed his willingness to fight in adversity by bowling well on Sunday despite his calf strain.

ENGLAND SQUAD: M P Vaughan (captain), M E Trescothick, M A Butcher, N Hussain, E T Smith, A J Stewart, A Flintoff, A F Giles, Kabir Ali, S J Harmison, J M Anderson, R J Kirtley, M P Bicknell.