Surrey captain and former England batsman Mark Butcher expects that life is not going to be easy for the England squad touring New Zealand over the next few months.

England have just flown out to New Zealand for the second leg of the winter touring schedule to take on the Black Caps in both a One Day International and Test Match series. Butcher spoke exclusively to Surrey TV about how he thinks England will get on.

“It is not going to be easy, particularly when you play someone where the weather can play a part.” Commented Butcher.

“The weather can be a bit of an anomaly over there, where you can get very hot days like an Australian summer but you can also get howling winds. It is a little like Melbourne where you can get four seasons in one day.”

England’s problem in the wicket keeping department continued as Matthew Prior found himself cast to the scrap heap with Warwickshire’s wicket keeping all rounder, Tim Ambrose replacing him to join Phil Mustard on the tour. Both players have yet to make their Test debut, which will surely place added pressure when the series starts in a couple of weeks.
“The thing is which one of them starts? If Phil Mustard was the understudy to Matt Prior you would have to think that he would then step up to take his place and Ambrose become the understudy.”

He added: “I think that James Foster is somebody that deserves it as much as anybody else and of course you have got our own Jon Batty here!”

England battled hard in Sri Lanka but ultimately found that a lack of runs placed too much pressure on the bowlers and cost them the series. As a result, Andrew Strauss has found himself recalled into the squad having been dropped for the tour before Christmas.

“They will have to shuffle the order as I don’t think that they would have taken him out there if they were not going to play him. I would think that Vaughan will drop down to number three, he’s done that in the past and he is quite comfortable doing that.”

“Sri Lanka is a very difficult place to score big runs. One of the things England struggled with, was when a guy like Ian bell, who played beautifully, was scoring runs at 60 runs per 100 balls and then getting out…suddenly you get into a bit of trouble. So it is very important that these guys that are in good form really make sure they score big runs when they are in.”

To see the rest of Butcher’s interview with Surrey TV, click here.

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