CRICKET/First Test: There is an old Jamaican proverb: "Feel sorry for magga dog, magga dog come around and bite you." The magga dog in this case is West Indies cricket, which has been looking as mangy as can be. Yesterday everybody was fretting about whether it was on its last legs but it took a healthy bite out of England's trousers before Ashley Giles unceremoniously loaded it into the warden's van.

Jamaican dog proverbs might not be to the taste of the RSPCA, but this one might jolt England out of an excessive show of post-colonial concern for the state of Caribbean cricket.

England have been beating West Indies for all of four years now which, compared with the thrashings they have inflicted in the past, is no time at all.

As Chris Gayle and Devon Smith replied to England's 568 with a blissful century opening stand, Lord's purred how nice it was that they finally had the sun on their backs. It was the garden-party theory of Test cricket. They smiled benignly as Steve Harmison's opening spell misfired and Simon Jones struggled for rhythm.

When Giles then removed both openers with two wickets in four balls, there was little yelling the praises of a left-arm spinner who had considered retiring from Test cricket this summer because of persistent abuse. When Giles had Gayle leg-before, struck outside the line, and then had Brian Lara caught at the wicket off his pad, the crowd blushed at the big-screen replays.

England's blasé first-innings climax had shown a similar lack of ruthlessness. Robert Key continued to plunder, his 221 not far short of the 244 he had amassed in his previous eight Tests; and Michael Vaughan's 100 shone with technical excellence, one on-drive off Fidel Edwards causing him to run half the length of the pitch with his left elbow pointing to the heavens. But the loss of the last seven wickets for 41, in less than an hour, was as careless as it gets.

England, chasing a seventh win in eight Tests, have not had a more rewarding sequence of victories since the late 1970s, when they registered nine wins in 10. The Australians, weakened by defections to Kerry Packer's World Series, were whipped 5-1 at home by Mike Brearley's England and everybody could fret over the potential collapse of world cricket.

Twenty-five years on there is another potential split in the world game. Care to nominate a man who can aid West Indies cricket? Then remember the name of Gary Hopkins. Hopkins, an English-born businessman based in the United States, has been appointed by the International Cricket Council as the US's chief executive officer. His success will influence not just the future of US cricket but the prosperity of West Indies cricket itself.

Hopkins is the man the ICC has charged to market a series of international one-day tournaments in the US over the next few years. Nothing would provide West Indies cricket with a transfusion of interest like a US renaissance. The possibility that Caribbean cricketers could earn lucrative fees playing in professional US leagues would help cricket in the islands compete against other, more lucrative sports.

But US administration has been beaten to the punch by the unofficial Procricket League, a 20-over competition launched in the States last month. West Indies players such as Marlon Samuels, Mervyn Dillon and Wavell Hinds have joined up despite ICC discouragement.

As long as the ICC does not control the major cricket league in the US then, instead of it being a force for good in Caribbean cricket, it could become a dangerous foe, draining the Caribbean of its finest young players. Then it really would be time to worry about the West Indies.

Guardian Service