England head to Pakistan hoping to remain ‘unscathed’ by a packed schedule | England cricket team

Marcus Trescothick hopes England emerge from a sardine tin start to the winter ‘unscathed’ as he and seven players bounce straight from a cold, damp one-day series defeat to Australia straight into the 40 degree heat of Pakistan.

The Test squad heads to Multan on Tuesday, just 48 hours after Sunday’s 50-over decider in Bristol, with Trescothick, interim head coach for this side but also assistant coach in the Test line-up, joined by Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Jordan Cox, Ben Duckett, Matthew Potts, Jamie Smith and Olly Stone making the quick turnaround.

After an international home summer that only took place on September 29 – equaled only once before in history – and which featured a month-long T20 World Cup abroad, this departure begins a pre-Christmas series of three Tests in Pakistan, eight white-ball matches matches against the West Indies, and then three more Tests in New Zealand.

All three tours clash in a matter of days and have postponed Brendon McCullum’s start as all-format coach until January. Trescothick, who is back on the road in his coaching career after anxiety and depression cut short his international career, will work with the Test batters in Pakistan and then lead the Caribbean tour.

“We all knew what the schedule was,” Trescothick said. “It’s not ideal, of course, but these things are taken care of by (those at board level). You’d like a little more time and a break before you leave, but that’s not possible.

“I know we’re going to Multan, it’ll be 40 degrees compared to here (in Britain) and we’ll be stuck in it straight away. Once we get past this period of tight cricket, things will calm down a bit. Hopefully we will get through this period unscathed and everything will be fine.”

Trescothick expects the likes of Brook and Smith to be rested when the white-ball squad reconvenes in November, with Jos Buttler back as captain and, according to the interim coach, likely to don the gloves again. The latter may only be a short-term measure as McCullum believes he wants to take the lead in the field ahead of the Champions Trophy in the new year.

McCullum has also said he wants Buttler to enjoy himself after a ‘miserable’ year as captain, with Trescothick suggesting the calf injury that forced the 34-year-old to watch the 3-2 defeat to Australia from the sidelines was the first step was. to change this.

Trescothick said: “I expect he will find it very enjoyable in the future after working with Brendon. Go back two or three years ago (with the Test side), you can see how quickly it can change and get them back into that frame of mind.

“There is no reason why Jos wouldn’t score millions of runs, be a good captain and fit into the team perfectly. (This series) has been a great opportunity for him just to take a step back and not worry about the pressure of playing.”

Despite the likelihood of a weakened squad for the Caribbean tour, Trescothick expects greater convergence between the Test and ODI sides. He endorsed the possibility of Joe Root and Ben Stokes returning to the 50-over side and Ben Duckett’s strong first outing as opener, and believes the bowling attack should also cross over, citing the example of world champions Australia.

He said: “Their top three bowlers (Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood) play the majority of their games and alternate the odd one out. We are building up a stock of bowlers and we will position them as needed.

“There have been a lot of good things in this series, but we have to keep improving and make sure we do better for longer. We’ve had moments in all five games where we really could have been better than we were.”