Mark Butcher: I nearly retired

Mark Butcher has revealed that he was close to quitting cricket until the resurgence in the England team's performances inspired him to continue.

"The only reason I didn't give up cricket was because I didn't know what else I could do, but I think everyone looks at things like that when things aren't going well," he admitted.

"I wasn't really looking forward to the start of the season in April 2000 and apart from the success that Surrey had that year, it was a pretty rotten year for me all round.

"Looking back on it now, I played in 27 Tests and they seemed to fly by and since I've been out of it I've watched the success the guys have had and it's helped me build an appetite to get back," he continued.

"I was starting to miss it again and at one point I wouldn't have missed it at all. Life in general had got me down and that made it very difficult to give as much attention and focus to the job as I should."

But Butcher teamed up with his father, the ex-England player Alan Butcher, to work hard to eradicate some technical flaws over the winter. The rewards have been clear to see as the Surrey opener has been in sparkling form in the last couple of weeks in all forms of cricket.

"I've done a fair bit of rebuilding in certain parts of my game during the winter and that's taken a little bit of time to bed down this summer, but it seems to be working so far," he explained.

"In the last couple of years I've played virtually non-stop and a few things crept into my game that were causing a few problems, so I spent the winter at home and worked with the 'Old Fella', Butcher said, reflecting on a run of 23 Test innings without a half-century that led to him being dropped after the tour of South Africa.

"They were little adjustments, the sort of things golfers do all the time but cricketers rarely do, analysing the mechanics of it all - if the parts aren't moving properly you give yourself less of a chance to succeed."

David Graveney suggested that Butcher will bat at number three at Edgbaston in his bid to kick-start the career that brought Test centuries against two of the strongest bowling attacks in world cricket - South Africa and Australia. But Butcher admitted that the recall to England colours had come as a bit of a surprise.

"This has been a massive bolt out of the blue," he conceded. "I was so nervous when 'Grav' rang, which was something I hadn't felt in a very long time."