Cricket Test newsJamie Dalrymple says he is still "trying to get his head around" the fact he might make his England Test debut against Pakistan at Old Trafford tomorrow. It will be an impressive sight when he does, because it is quite a capacious head. A 2:1 degree in history from St Peter's College, Oxford, does not a Test cricketer make but it sure as hell helps to make his press conferences interesting.

England cricketers are trained to say very little, very politely, but none of them, as memory serves, has begun a reply thus: "Without wishing to overtly duck the question."

And the question where ducking would not really be the done thing was whether a man who has proved his adeptness as an all-rounder could cope if England chose him as the only spin bowler, ahead of a player who has become something of a cricket celebrity, Monty Panesar? "Who knows? I haven't bowled as yet," he said, assuming the philosophy of life as a grand exploration, befitting a man born in Kenya.

"The role of a spinner changes depending on the game, the wicket and the shapes of attack. It is slightly difficult to ponder on without having the facts in front of you. I would like to ultimately be a balanced all-rounder but the sides you play in do vary and give you a different role to perform."

Panesar is a bright lad, a former Loughborough university student, but all he will ever reveal is that he wants "to get the ball in the right areas". Dalrymple is frighteningly different. Perhaps he could do the interviews and Panesar take the wickets?

Or perhaps England will dare to play them both and bat Dalrymple at number six, as a second spinner in place of a specialist batsman, Ian Bell? Against that, Lancashire's groundsman Peter Marron is predicting a fast and bouncy wicket. It does not sound like an occasion for two spinners.

"I try and avoid (consideration of) permutations," he said, prompting the thought that we may need an awful lot of explanatory brackets when it comes to Dalrymple's innermost thought processes.

"When I began with Middlesex I was always looking desperately to see how I could get into the side. But that is a whole side of the game I don't have anything to do with. Someone else makes the decisions." If there were a backlash because he was chosen ahead of Panesar, Dalrymple says he "would not take it to heart because I was not picking the side - I would just go out and do the job I was chosen to do."

Duncan Fletcher, England's coach, is taken by Dalrymple's adaptability and presumably his nerve. He was a surprise pick in the NatWest series in which England were thrashed 5-0 by Sri Lanka and was the home side's only success. His presence in next year's World Cup seems assured as in the limited-overs form of the game he has begun to answer those of us who were sceptical about him.

"I took personal confidence from it," he said, "but I would have taken more confidence if we had won the series."

His analysis of the leap from county to international cricket was as revealing as anything anybody has said for years. It might well be that Atherton MA, another Oxbridge graduate, was equally cerebral a decade ago but time dims the memory.

"It all felt very clinical," he said, "if that's the right word. Good balls are good. Bad balls are bad and they are hit for four.

"In a funny way it almost felt simple. You have a plan, you try to execute it and similarly you have a good idea of what the opposition are going to achieve. I don't know if that expresses anything clearly. Obviously there is more time to prepare and that could be part of it. It is played on good wickets. It is more straightforward. Fewer variables perhaps."

Had Dalrymple's Middlesex career slowed, he might have chosen a career in the City instead. Fortunately, for him and England, he has been spared that.

"I don't think I would have played on and on," he said. "If I hadn't fulfilled my potential I would have moved on but things have been evolving slightly and they have moved on quickly this summer."