Cricket: Not so much to worry about

OVER a breakfast of runny scrambled eggs here yesterday, Mike Atherton stared wistfully out of the window at a familiar sight. Rain. But whereas it comes as a relief in Manchester during a non-stop summer, in India its arrival is hampering his chances of building up any sort of form.

Confined to one proper match on tour so far, Atherton is taking a back seat for the one-day internationals, so was eager for a strenuous workout in the Air Force nets (there are plenty of willing bowlers - the pilots are still on strike). But once the heavens opened it looked as if no one would play there for a month.

Even John Emburey looked disappointed. 'I haven't been bowling badly,' he said, 'but being continually launched for straight sixes does dent your confidence a bit.' It would have taken another knock with the appearance in yesterday's papers of a picture of Gooch reading a large tabloid headline, 'Emburey Creaks As England Flop'.

At least Atherton, the only graduate in the party, can appreciate his surroundings. Intrigued by Asian culture, he spent a month up-country in Thailand before this tour, and the other day took the hardest route - by taxi, a 10-hour round trip - to see the Taj Mahal.

Atherton is one of the 11 players in this squad who have never been to India before. Some are still in the after-effects of culture shock - the noise, the apparent poverty, the crowds with their fixed stares and firecrackers. Before you double up in sympathy, you'd better understand that they've been put up in a five-star hotel with a lobby the size of Trafalgar Square, and whiled away Friday night kangarooing in Ambassador cars between the Sheraton Hotel in the next block and the British High Commission, which offers egg and chips, karaoke nights and draught Boddingtons.

Players are never satisfied, of course, and after all the earnest preparation of Lilleshall, yesterday's inactivity frayed the nerves. So what did they do? Gooch became immersed in the Robert Harris best-seller Fatherland which he has nearly finished, Graeme Hick's reading material was a more down-market Wilbur Smith number. Robin Smith stayed in bed until roused by the Chief Sneak of the fines committee, Neil Fairbrother, for a meeting. Smith is chairman. Keith Fletcher was a target for wearing blue track-suit bottoms on Friday while carrying drinks on to the field and for rabbiting so much that Clem Driver, the scorer, was forced to turn his hearing-aid off.

Phil Tufnell discussed strategy with Vic Marks, now in his journalistic capacity. 'It gets you thinking out here,' Tufnell observed. 'They're good at playing my sort of stuff. I can't just throw up a few loopy-doopies like I do to the West Indians.' He finds the large, vociferous crowds rather daunting, the multicolours surging and swaying as if in a giant tumble-dryer. He would have benefited from a junior tour here - the England under-19s have just arrived and will be a lot better prepared for the challenge of a senior tour than the greener members of this squad.

Meanwhile, Dermot Reeve, hairbrush in one hand, Kodak Super 8 in the other, was casting round for some unfortunate to feature in his next video. At grounds or on trains, Reeve has conducted cryptic interviews with real Indians - and Paul Jarvis disguised in sarong and turban. The results, screened once a week in the team room, have alleviated the drudgery of hotel life, though whether staying in last night's venue - a converted maharaja's palace in the 'Pink City' of Jaipur - qualifies as drudgery is a matter of interpretation. In the gym, Malcolm and Lewis pumped iron while the newcomers to the England party - Richard Blakey, Ian Salisbury and Paul Taylor - rehearsed a sketch for their initiation ceremony tomorrow.

Such is life on the Indian road, and it may continue on that surface for a while as most domestic planes are still grounded. The web of bureaucratic guidelines in the subcontinent now decree that any pilot who hasn't been airborne for a month must undergo a fresh medical, and for that they have to get to Hyderabad - in the middle of nowhere.

But as Gooch's team gathered to watch a live telecast of the England-France rugby match and Beethoven played in the foyer, their only worry was lack of time in the middle. Their liaison officer, Mr Pinto, has all the travel headaches, and Mr Govind minds the bags, as he has done on each tour for the past two decades. But that's another story . . .

(Photograph omitted)