Tired Trescothick not thinking about captaincy

England opening batsman Marcus Trescothick, one of the leading contenders to take over the England one-day captaincy from Nasser Hussain, has said that while he welcome the opportunity to do the job, a long and difficult winter has taken its toll and he wants to get away from cricket for a while.

"Obviously I'd be delighted to have a go if asked - but to be totally frank, it is the last thing I'm thinking about at the moment."

Trescothick went through the whole of the draining winter campaign and, apart from suffering the same disappointments that his colleagues endured, he also had to contend with his own decline in batting form.

He told The Mail On Sunday newspaper: "To be honest, I've had such a gut-full of playing cricket over the last five months that I just want to get it out of my system.

"The combination of all the things we went through over Zimbabwe, being away for so long, not being able to get a break from the environment we were in and my battles with my own form have left me demoralised and frustrated.

"I get so much enjoyment from the game and I love it so much, but, at the moment, I've reached the stage where a bit of enthusiasm has gone - and that scares me.

"I am experiencing something I never have before and I thought I never would. I've stopped enjoying it."

Trescothick looked back at the decision not to go to Harare to play against Zimbabwe and maintains that the players and the England and Wales Cricket Board took the right decision.

"In hindsight, forfeiting the points may have cost us a place in the Super Sixes and we would have felt very confident of going further. Bearing in mind how well we had competed against Australia, perhaps all the way.

"But if you ask me, `was that a price worth paying?', I would say without hesitation, `Yes'.

"You can't put a price on the kind of things we were hearing and reading. It only takes one man with a grievance and a weapon and, at the end of the day, there were far more important things at stake than playing a game of cricket."

Meanwhile, the ECB chief executive Tim Lamb, speaking BBC's Breakfast With Frost, said that he was happy that the right decision was made about the Zimbabwe trip.

"The ECB management board met earlier in the week and went through the sequence of events and the general consensus was that it was difficult to see how we could have done anything different.

"It was a blow that we didn't get through to the Super Sixes - we should have beaten Australia and clearly losing the points from a match we were expected to win (in Zimbabwe) ruined our chances in the World Cup.

"But at the end of the day our decision not to send the players was borne out of our duty of care - imagine how we would have lived with ourselves if anything had happened in Harare."

Having lost the cricketing argument, the ECB could now face a legal battle if the International Cricket Board's commercial partners, the Global Cricket Corporation, claim compensation for an alleged breach of contract by not fulfilling the Harare fixture.

Lamb, however, is confident that the ECB have a good case to defend any such action.

"We believe we have a strong legal case and we will defend that. But it remains to be seen what sort of damages are claimed."