Trescothick collects an early boundary

"When you're 80 per cent, 90 per cent and you've got a young lad who's 100 per cent and raring to go, and the point of a tour is to have a look at people, it wasn't too difficult a decision."

He added: "I thought he did excellently to go out and protect a score. He's not done a lot of captaincy in his career and to do that, and the way he handled himself, was excellent.

"I'm not going to be around forever, I've made that clear, and the more experience he gets, the better."

Hussain is also intent on ending the tour on the right note at the weekend.

"There's no point coming out here, being 4-0 up, and letting your foot off the gas on the last day. That will make it a long plane journey home - 5-0 will complete everything we came here for."

Zimbabwe were led by former skipper Alistair Campbell in the absence of Heath Streak, who has a bad back, but he was unable to reverse the decline their fortunes.

He urged the national selectors to show greater continuity instead of making changes to the team for every game.

"We've got Sharjah coming up. We need to get a side out there for five, six, seven games, so guys can play together," said Campbell.