THE England cricket team, who are due to touch down at Heathrow today, had just one worry as they chewed the Vegamite and toast of their last New Zealand breakfast in Wellington yesterday.
As they made gleeful phone calls home, patted their passports and gazed out upon the windy city and the heavy, almost Biblical rain which makes hopping on a plane a particularly easy exercise, they saw the back page of the Dominion, the local newspaper, which informed them that Australia had beaten South Africa, massively, by an innings and 196 runs. England have enjoyed a generally successful tour of New Zealand but only next summer's Ashes series will determine whether they have made real progress or just papered over the cracks, in itself an achievement requiring a forest or two of pulp-wood after what had gone on in Zimbabwe.
The underlying problems of English cricket - too many players playing too much and the happy acceptance of mediocre standards - remain and could be cruelly exposed by the Australians. So could the fact that this England side still lacks a fast bowler of authentic pace or a wrist-spinner of world class.
Captain Michael Atherton said:
"The Aussies are a good side. They're as strong a team as we've played against this Winter. They'll punish any lapses." Coach David Lloyd added: "Australia are the best team for me. Against South Africa they were strong and ruthless and we'll have to be absolutely at our maximum to beat them. "The side to play Australia in the first Test can be pencilled in now and that is more than could be said after the muddle of South Africa and the World Cup last Winter."
Atherton added: "The selectors will have their own job to do in the summer but to start with, I would hope that the side wouldn't be much different. We've won back-to-back Test matches, the side's played reasonably good cricket and continuity is important. It would be sensible to stick to the nucleus of the side that has done well here."
Atherton was wearing an express ion which bordered on serenity. Defeat in New Zealand would have made his position untenable and he knew it. In Zimbabwe he had been under intense pressure, short of runs (just 34 in four Test innings), suffering virus and back trouble and with serious doubts concerning his tactical imagination and ability to motivate the side.
The last two question marks remain indelibly in place but he is now full of form and fitness and it his players are not inspired by him they certainly like and respect the man. His most likely successor, meanwhile, the vice-captain Nasser Hussain, has taken a half-step backwards this winter, averaging just 30.87 in five Tests.
Nick Knight has even more to prove at this level. There have been, however, more successes than failures. If Alec Stewart (498 runs from this winter's five tests, average 71.14) and Darren Gough (26 wickets and 20.46) have been the outstanding achievers Robert Croft, with 18 wickets in four Tests and 18.88 has been England's major discovery.
Here is a gem of a cricketer, a great character and a useful one-day player too.
England's players and management will take part in a seminar in London in mid-April - and again in the winter - to discuss the best approach to touring a specific country so that the negative and damaging attitude which applied in Zimbabwe will not be repeated.
The players clearly lack some imagination in coming to terms with that country.
