Respectively the leading wicket-taker and run-scorer in this season's Test matches, neither will be too distressed to be missing a demanding encounter with Sri Lanka, but their probable absence shows what a ticklish job the selectors will have before the World Cup next May.
The theory behind a preference for batting and bowling specialists, as opposed to one-day all-rounders, is that the white ball, for some unexplained reason - the dye or the original leather? - swings more than the conventional red one. That characteristic has been exaggerated, perhaps, in a largely wet summer and it may be again in the early part of next season.
But it is August now and the way the Sri Lankans set about taking the polish of the ball at Trent Bridge yesterday after being put in on a greenish pitch must have made the selectors very pleased that they did not wholly abandon their own attacking opening pair. Alistair Brown and Nick Knight will be doing their best to upstage the more renowned pairing of Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana tomorrow although Atherton played one of the most uninhibited attacking innings of his life when he scored 127 against the West Indies at Lord's three years ago.
The ball being used in this series is a Duke, although balls made by the other British manufacturer, Alfred Reader, are also sometimes used in the AXA League and the performance of the Duke ball is being monitored before a decision is made about which will be chosen for the World Cup.
The South Africans found it difficult to control the swing as Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana went through their wristy repertoire in a way which must have brought to Atherton painful memories of the last World Cup. When England parted the opening pair in the 13th over of the quarter-final at Faisalabad, they had scored 113 - Jayasuriya 82 off 44 balls.
Darren Gough and Alan Mullally will probably take the new ball tomorrow, with Peter Martin as the third specialist fast bowler, allowing Fraser to rest his sore back for at least two more days. Robert Croft, whose 242 overs in 26 previous one-day internationals have gone for fewer than four runs an over, will no doubt be preferred to Ashley Giles unless England decide the pitch is dry enough for two spinners. That leaves Mark Ealham and Adam Hollioake to take the pace off the ball.
Hansie Cronje, one of those fiddly medium pacers of the Matthew Fleming variety who are apparently better suited to the grassless pitches of the Persian Gulf or the Subcontinent of India, was as effective as anyone against Sri Lanka yesterday. But Pramodya Wickremasinghe's opening spell of three for 20 showed that in almost any conditions there is nothing to beat the virtues which Fraser demonstrates, day in and out, better than anyone: line and length.
Sri Lanka's captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, is not a certain starter tomorrow because of a bruised knee but his players are very much in the mood after Trent Bridge and they will punish any English complacency. One glance back to the last World Cup should surely banish any lingering temptation to underestimate their opponents.
England (from): *-A J Stewart, M A Atherton, A D Brown, R D B Croft, M A Ealham, A R C Fraser, A F Giles, D Gough, D W Headley, G A Hick, A J Hollioake, N Hussain, P J Martin, A D Mullally.