A touch of Coombe Dingle in Colombo

As Jeremy Snape wandered out to play the other day a team-mate said: "Who'd have thought it, Jez – from Calcutta to Coombe Dingle in six months." It has been some trip. Put another way, Snape has come from England versus India at Eden Gardens in front of 110,000 to Gloucestershire II v Glamorgan II at Bristol University before a man and a dog, with the man failing to arrive.

The twist is that he now has to do something similar all over again. Having been forced to play for his county stiffs this summer, Snape will leave with England on Thursday for the Champions' Trophy in Sri Lanka. Beyond that lie the triangular series in Australia, and the World Cup.

You can imagine now one of the England players turning to him as they walk into the cauldron in Johannesburg on 23 March: "I don't believe it Snapper, from the second XI championship to the World Cup final."

"It's been disappointing," he said last week. "The county have made the decision that they don't have room for me in the four-day side because they didn't think my form at the start of the season was good enough. It's all been a bit surreal when I think of playing at Eden Gardens back in January, and that was hard to believe at the time.

"This has all been a great education and I've learned a lot about myself, coming out to bat here this summer with just a lone swallow swooping down on a placid field."

It was somehow apposite that Snape should talk of placidity. It is a notable characteristic of his, and one for which England may have cause to be extremely grateful in the next fortnight considering their growing casualty list. Some calm and some international experience, albeit limited, will be crucial if they are to avoid embarrassment in Colombo where all the Test playing nations will be competing for what is billed as a trophy second only in importance to the World Cup.

Snape will probably leave Gloucestershire in the autumn. It is an open secret that he is not alone in falling out with the approach of the coach, John Bracewell. Since he is also out of contract – and it is patently ridiculous that a man deemed fit for England is thought not to be good enough for Gloucestershire – a parting of the ways is inevitable. Snape is too talented and diligent to be short of suitors. He has prospered on moving before: he left North-amptonshire for Gloucestershire three years ago.

One of the highest compliments that can be paid is that he has not let England down as a late-middle-order batsman-cum-slow off-spinner, for it was a surprise when he was selected last autumn for the one-day tour to Zimbabwe and he hasa diffident air, which suggests his jib may not be cut for international cricket.

There is no bluster about Snape. He knows how good he is and how good he is not. The fact he studied psychology as a part of his natural sciences degree at Durham University has helped him to cope with triumph and disaster.

On playing for England against the likes of Tendulkar and Ganguly, he said: "You just have to remember to do the best you can and to believe that you can do it. Recognis-ing that you are not as good as the players you are against can help. I never expected to get that far, to be playing in that environment, but I went in determined to make the best of it I could."

In Madras, he had his finest hour, accumulating 38 when England were 125 for 6 and then dismissing Sachin Tendulkar leg before with the little master in his pomp. The ground suddenly fell silent. Snape, so to speak, went ape.

But then he lost his place in the side after splitting the webbing between thumb and forefinger, and never regained it. On returning to England, he played in Gloucestershire's Championship team at the start of the season, did not find his form and was dropped.

"I think one of the biggest tests of my character occurred then, when having not played much cricket I found myself in the NatWest triangular series. I had to work out my cricket again, reassess. But I felt prepared, I believed I was ready and that is how I feel about Sri Lanka."

There lies the contradiction in Snape: hardly believing he is equipped for international cricket and yet feeling he is ready to deal with whatever it throws at him. He is one of the multi-faceted cricketers of whom England's coach, Duncan Fletcher, is so fond in limited-overs cricket. Snape bats, bowls and fields.

If he is, in truth, short of top class in both main disciplines (but of the highest rank in the field) he has an acute sense of what is required at a particular stage of a match.

When he was first picked by England he (and the media) made much of his being the slowest bowler in international cricket. It was a trick which worked for a while, too. Top-class players were taken unawares by his lack of pace. But word spreads. By the time the England caravan reached Kanpur for the fourth one-dayer last winter, Snape went for 45 runs off 5.4 overs.

"I have been working hard on variety and getting more rotation," he said. "Geoff Miller has spent several hours helping me and while because of my height I am never going to be a muscular spinner like Ashley Giles, I hope I will be able to use the crease and different paces more. There can still be a surprise element to the slower ball."

There lies the advantage of not being full-time on the county treadmill. First, he might not have been able to spare the time with Miller, the former England off-spinning all-rounder and now a selector. Secondly, he has been more prepared to experiment in second-team cricket.

While he has not quite taken the second XI championship by storm, he has a batting average of 71 and took 6 for 56 when he last bowled. Occasional observers, that man's dog apart, have said firmly that he is too good for it. If and when, in a few days, he steps out in the humidity and fervour of Colombo, he will remember Coombe Dingle all right.