“I nearly got away with that didn’t I?” David Gower says with a knowing grin after I ask him for a second time whom he would choose to bat at No 3 for England in the first Ashes Test at Perth. “That’s a shame, I’ll have to give you an answer now and I’ll feel bad for the lad I don’t pick.” Forget Kramer vs Kramer or Celia Imrie trying to winkle out Alan Carr in the Traitors castle, Pope v Bethell is the only duel on the mind of English cricket right now.
As a former England captain and an Ashes winner home and away, not to mention one of England’s most stylish and successful No 3s – 2,619 of his 8,231 Test runs were scored there, as were eight of his 18 centuries – Gower is perhaps uniquely placed to comment on England’s selection quandary at first drop.
