Gloucestershire have a better one-day record, but then they’ve done nothing in first-class cricket. The cluttered fixture list makes it hard for any county to be consistently good in both whites and pyjamas This year, Surrey have managed it. If Fletcher is determined to judge Hollioake on results, he will soon have no way to leave him out.By long tradition, most of England’s key players come from two sources: the Surrey championship and the Yorkshire leagues. The players who have done best for England against Australia down the years have mostly come from The Oval or Headingley. England’s only century-makers in Ashes Tests this decade have been Vaughan, Butcher and Ramprakash. Their occasional victories over Australia have come from scintillating performances by Vaughan, Butcher, Darren Gough and Thorpe; although also, to be fair, Nasser Hussain, Andy Caddick, Dean Headley, and Phil Tufnell in the happy days before he was best known for saying “happy days”. Surrey and Yorkshire can’t do it alone – even Boycott, Edrich and Illingworth needed Luckhurst, D’Oliveira and Snow – but the other 16 counties can’t do it without them.Five years ago, the best way to get into the England team was to play for Surrey.

Now, you’re better off joining Yorkshire, even if their results go up and down like their roads. Anthony McGrath is preferred to Hollioake, a similar player with a better county record and more international experience, the one ingredient England chronically lack. When Fletcher’s England have needed an extra seam or swing bowler, the call has gone out to Yorkies such as Gavin Hamilton, Ryan Sidebottom and Chris Silverwood, never to the vastly more accomplished Martin Bicknell. When they needed a second spinner last winter, the place went to Yorkshire’s Richard Dawson, a promising youngster who hadn’t yet done anything to suggest he would be more than a passenger.When the selectors picked the present squad, they took a calculated risk on a one-day veteran, missing for a year or so and written off in some quarters, who had much to impart to the novice bowlers (Gough), and rightly so.

But they wouldn’t do so with a one-day veteran, missing for a year or so and written off in some quarters, who had much to impart to the novice batsmen (Thorpe). This may have had nothing to do with their counties: a dodgy knee is easier for the sporting mind to cope with than a messy divorce.The question now is not so much how many Surrey players should be in the England team, as how many England players would get a game with Surrey. Ward or Trescothick? Butcher or Vaughan? These are not easy calls. A composite one-day team might look like this: Trescothick, Vaughan (Surrey wouldn’t make the obvious mistake of pushing him down the order), Brown, Thorpe, Flintoff, Stewart, Hollioake (capt), Bicknell, Saqlain Mushtaq (who would surely have won the NatWest Challenge for Pakistan, if they had only remembered to pick him), Gough and Anderson. So about five England players would make it, but on present form Gough would be pressed hard by Ormond, Vaughan by Butcher, and several players by Azhar Mahmood.If the froideur continues, Surrey will have no choice but to apply for international status.