England ready to recall Trescothick

The troubled left-hander has not played for his country since the final Test against Pakistan last August and was forced to quit the Ashes tour after suffering a recurrence of the illness that ended his participation in the trip to India 18 months ago.

But England's chairman of selectors, David Graveney, will contact the 31-year-old today to see if he is prepared to make himself available for the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in the second half of September.

At the start of this summer, England signalled their desire to include Trescothick in their long-term planning by picking him in their 25-man "performance squad" with an eye on a possible return on the short trip to South Africa.

They may have wanted the Somerset opener to play a full season of county cricket to confirm his rehabilitation but are being forced to bring the issue to a head because ICC regulations require them to name a 30-man squad for the competition by Wednesday, before trimming it to 15 by August 11.

Graveney said: "We have to name our preliminary squad by Wednesday.

"We want to be able to consider Marcus and I will be contacting him to find out where he stands."

The South African trip, lasting a maximum of 16 days, is seen as an ideal opportunity to ease Trescothick back.

He has been sorely missed at the top of the England order, especially in limited-overs cricket. He has made 12 one-day hundreds, compared with nine in the entire current line-up.

Graveney has described him as "one of the most attacking one-day players in the world" while Test skipper Michael Vaughan called him "England's best one-day batsman".