All the pizzazz of a village show

One-day series launched in a blaze of apathy, writes David Hopps.

About the only saving grace of a desultory official launch of the NatWest Series yesterday was that no one thought to drone on about what a vital build up it will be to next year's World Cup. England's World Cup build-up has been going on for so long now that the moment they are knocked out in South Africa they will probably pronounce it all as a jolly useful exercise before the next one in the West Indies.

Such was the generally shambolic air at Trent Bridge that for England, India or Sri Lanka even to imagine themselves emerging nine months hence as World Cup winners deserved only scepticism.

The launch began half-an-hour late, largely because no one could find the Sri Lankans; India are so exhausted that they barely know or care what country they are in; and England are preparing for a one-day series in traditional fashion - affording it about the same importance as a village produce show.

It is to be hoped that the cricket is better than the build-up, although even that is not altogether certain. After promising a serious investigation last year into the dubious quality of floodlights at English day-night internationals, the England and Wales Cricket Board have reduced the number of pylons at Trent Bridge from eight to seven. There's a breakthrough then.

After England's series in New Zealand last winter, Duncan Fletcher produced a report on how best England could prepare this summer for the World Cup. His preference was for a week's get-together in Wales before the NatWest Series, though it can safely be assumed that he did not propose that half the one-day squad should report on Saturday, with the rest turning up 24 hours later. No wonder Sri Lanka assumed yesterday they could arrive at Trent Bridge when they felt like it.

Judging by Fletcher's expression yesterday - the one where he looks like an inner-city publican who has just been told that his beer pipes need cleaning - he was not overly impressed. "It was a very disjointed start," he said. "On Saturday, I was explaining to half the squad the tactics I wanted them to use when batting, and then the other half pitched up 24 hours later.

"We need 20 players contracted to England and we need one-day specialists among them. Why are we the last country to do it?"

The battle over central contracts seems never-ending, but it is soon to reach a critical stage. Cricket's first-class counties will decide in August whether to accept an expansion of England's centrally-contracted players from 11 to 20. They have agreed in principle, but only subject to satisfactory compensation, and the ECB has no desire to sign a blank cheque.

Until an agreement is reached, the likes of Michael Vaughan and Alec Stewart play in a worthless city sixes competition in front of a deserted Edgbaston, Andrew Flintoff bowls for Lancashire in a Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy tie at Essex despite England's protestations, and the Benson & Hedges Cup final, which demanded the attention of Nasser Hussain among others, is scheduled at the most inconvenient time of the season.

This all explained matters. When Marcus Trescothick complained the other day that England "had not grooved their bonding," it sounded as if they had suffered a calamitous experience with a self-assembly bookcase. It was actually an attempt to explain away England's warm-up defeat against what Hussain stoutly described yesterday as "a very strong Wales side',' but which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Glamorgan side that had conceded a world-record one-day total against Surrey in a C&G tie five days earlier.

"People are making too much of a practice match," Hussain added. It is to be hoped that his list included the ECB, who spotting the financial killing to be had from a spot of Welsh nationalism, flogged the tickets at £25 a time.

England's major concern after the Wales defeat continues to be the vulnerability in one-day cricket of Yorkshire's pace bowler, Matthew Hoggard, who suffered a rash of wides and no-balls as he disappeared for 63 in seven overs.

Hoggard had a special coaching session with Fletcher on the Trent Bridge square to try to eradicate the problem, although even that begged the question why the bowling coach, Graham Dilley, was not available to offer specialist advice. Until Hoggard develops more subtlety when the ball is not swinging, occasional bad days will keep on coming.

Sourav Ganguly looked weary, although his marvellous sneer when a mobile phone went off to interrupt his press conference showed that the old timing has not deserted him. With no Javagal Srinath, who has retired, he has an inexperienced pace attack to deal with.

Sri Lanka's happiest batsman is Russel Arnold. He has arranged a sponsorship deal to use the intriguingly novel Woodworm bat, which has strange semi-circular cutaways on the edges. On one of cricket's more low-key days, it was about the only thing that could claim to be revolutionary.

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