Support for Hussain despite batting failures

The most remarkable aspect of Nasser Hussain's wretched batting form is that his standing has been enhanced in the process. It is as if his worth has become fully appreciated only at the time of his greatest struggle, as if the whole of England has awakened to the realisation that here is a captain to be preserved at all costs.

Hussain, in a dreadful run of form to rival that of any modern England captain, might be leaning, but like the tower at Pisa, no one dares talk of collapse, only considers how best to strengthen the foundations. To imagine Hussain not leading England against the Australians next summer remains inconceivable.

Only Mike Denness and Mike Gatting, in three decades of captaincy, have endured a similar run to Hussain's 10 consecutive Test innings without a fifty. Denness was derided in the mid-1970s, nowhere more so than at Leeds, scene of today's critical fourth Test against West Indies, where his inability to counter the pace of Australia's Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson caused Brian Close to scoff: "To dismiss this lad Denness you don't have to bowl fast, you just have to run up fast."

Gatting's popularity at large never dimmed; it was the administrators who plotted his sacking. His batting woes in the mid80s were symptomatic of a troubled period in which his dispute with the Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana had grave diplomatic consequences and his late-night dalliance with a Nottingham barmaid encouraged English cricket to new levels of priggishness.

With Hussain, though, even as his failures are listed, they seem somehow illusory. An average this summer barely in double figures just cannot be. This is the batsman who began the millennium by becoming the first Test player to go 1,000 minutes without being dismissed.

Even West Indies, normally so clinical at exposing a weak captain, still voice their respect. Jimmy Adams, their captain, had too many injury concerns over his own support bowlers, Reon King and Franklyn Rose, to play mind games. "We don't just want to dismiss Nasser because he is a captain in poor form but because he is a world-class player," he said.

Quite how much sympathy he will receive from a drier-than-usual Leeds pitch nobody cares to predict. Hussain undoubtedly has got his first decision right. He will remain at number three, leaving Graeme Hick to fulfil the role of a specialist batsman at number seven, ahead of four pace bowlers with above-average batting credentials.

Had Hussain properly returned from injury at number three in the final of the NatWest series a month ago (instead Andrew Flintoff batted at three and made nought, while Hussain dropped himself to number six in an ill-advised display of selflessness), it is conceivable this debate would not be happening.

Yesterday he sought to talk up his reputation, recalling how four years ago, against India at Edgbaston, he scored the hundred that finally ended England's humiliating run of failures at first wicket down. The only certainty before Hussain about England's number three was that, whoever he turned out to be, England's number four might as well have walked out with him.

"When England were looking for a number three, I came in and did the job," he said. "I intend to carry on doing that. Yes, the captaincy is a tiring job but it goes with the territory. Everybody goes through a lean trot. The important thing is we all pick ourselves up for the last two Tests."

England (from): Hussain (capt), Atherton, Trescothick, Thorpe, Stewart (wkt), Vaughan, Hick, White, Cork, Caddick, Gough, Hoggard.

West Indies (from): Adams (capt), Campbell, Griffith, Hinds, Lara, Gayle, Sarwan, Jacobs (wkt), McLean, Rose, Ambrose, King, Walsh, Collymore.