Cricket: Darren Gough Still Hopes to Join England's World Cup Squad

There are a group of retired cricketers touring the surf beaches of Australia, ambling through the Castlemaine XXX Beach Cricket Tri-Nations tournament, and marvelling at the fact that it is deemed worthy of hours of live TV. And then there is Darren Gough, still very much unretired, burning to prove that he should be in England's World Cup squad, his ambitions rekindled by reports that changes to the preliminary squad of 30 are imminent.

"If you can run on sand, you can run on grass," he brusquely told the assembled English media. It was worth the journey to Maroubra Beach, a few miles south of Sydney, just to hear him say that. Gough remains the most boisterous and quotable of all England cricketers. But the child huffing and puffing happily on the beach is now 36. Surely there cannot be another comeback?

Duncan Fletcher likes to turn up to cricket matches incognito, to study a player's form in silence, but as hard as Darren Gough scoured the stands, the England coach did not seem to have added beach cricket to his agenda. There was a man who looked a bit like him, disguised by dour sunglasses and a bright yellow floppy hat, but he wandered off for an ice cream halfway through Gough's first over.

He was angry not to be selected in the World Cup 30. He had returned last summer in the NatWest one-day series against Pakistan, braving a shin injury, and managing two matches before a stress fracture put him in pot for six weeks. He then played in the Hong Kong Sixes at the request of the chairman of selectors, David Graveney.

Then, after doing all that had been asked of him, he was uncaringly omitted from the 30 with the implication that he has failed a fitness test. Graveney was later forced to issue an abject apology. Gough was incandescent. "The papers said I was fat," he said. "I finished midway in the fat test. There are half of them fatter than me."

He looked in decent order although, unlike most of the crowd, he had to keep his shirt on. He bowled with the same ebullient little strut, and forced those long since retired, such as Viv Richards and Allan Border, to concentrate rather more than was healthy for them. He dived to catch a ball at cover and virtually buried himself in the sand, like he must have done at Scarborough as a child.

Did he really still think he can play in the World Cup? "I might, if the youngsters don't bowl it in the right place. They bowled well against Australia but they have to do it every match. I've got experience, I can bring fun and I can still bowl at the death. They brought back Nixon because he could lift a dressing room and he's 36."

He is "90 per cent certain" to sign a new two-year contract with Essex, who have looked after him well, although he is aware that Yorkshire covet him and is touched by their interest. "I know what my heart says, I know what my head says and I'll just have to wait to see what my body says," he said.

On Maroubra Beach, of all places, the hackneyed phrase about time and tide waiting for no man could hardly be avoided. "I hear he's got a nice tan," joked England's captain, Michael Vaughan, none too encouragingly, yesterday.

But some squeeze out more favours than others, and Gough comebacks have become part of the English cricket landscape. Even if he makes a rejigged World Cup 30, it will take injuries among England's pace attack for him to be named in the final 15 on February 13, but he is not the sort to give up hope.