England protest at practice facilities

At least a fortnight went by without England and India having a tiff about cricket. This state of tranquillity was never destined to endure and yesterday the pair were at it again.

England complained bitterly about the standard of practice nets they have been given before the start of the one-day series, India effectively told them to stop whingeing and get on with it by refusing a request to move. The boards of both countries are now involved and there seems likely to be a rerun of the recent clash between Tim Lamb, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board and his old adversary Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the Indian Cricket Board.

Lamb launched an early broadside, saying it was totally unacceptable, but Dalmiya, an old hand, is pretty certain to come back with something much more derisory – yesterday he said: "Why are they making a fuss now? The arrangements were known beforehand."

The spat, which looks like ending in a narrow victory for the home side, made for a pleasant diversion from the much more serious argument India are having with Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir. It is a measure of cricket's stature here that the two conflicts were eliciting roughly equal excitement.

England were already miffed at being forced to play six one-dayers instead of the original five – the subject of the most recent in a long history of quarrels between the two countries. The extra match had already reduced their practice time and they could hardly contain their anger when they saw what had been provided at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club.

It might as well have been a couple of goalposts and a corner flag to judge from their reaction to the cricketing paraphernalia on offer. The tourists expressed their unhappiness and after their first practice session requested to move to Eden Gardens, the city's main stadium where the first one-dayer is being played on Saturday.

After the second session yesterday the coach, Duncan Fletcher, made their displeasure public – almost angrily by his impassive standards. "I've been disappointed and frustrated with the practice facilities we have been given," he said. "The club have tried their best to accommodate us, but after being asked to squeeze another international match into the schedules we had to cut down on practice and expected decent practice facilities."

Fletcher said the practice pitches were poor, meaning batsmen could not play the type of shots they would attempt in a one-dayer. Bowlers could not go flat out and were denied the chance to learn to operate on good pitches. The netting itself was deficient because balls went through from one net to the other, and the lights were inadequate too.

England were also upset to find that a match was being played when they turned up at the agreed time and were already displeased at being allotted a mere 90 minutes. Yes, yes, the Indians must have been tempted to ask, but apart from that was everything all right? "I feel it's not right to treat an international side like that," said Fletcher. England's request for Eden Gardens was refused because of security fears and concerns about interfering with arrangements for Saturday.

But Fletcher said they had spoken to the deputy police commissioner who said security would have been easier at Eden Gardens than at CCFC.

The preparations could well be hampered, but England have already been granted sessions at Eden Gardens tomorrow and on Friday. India were in no mood to back down. A spokesman for the Cricket Association of Bengal said: "It isn't possible because we are busy preparing the ground. We can only make it available on Tuesday. I am sure that if the Indian team landed for a match a Lord's or some other top Test centre in England it wouldn't be allowed to go on to the main ground this early." From England, Lamb confirmed that he has already had several discussions with Dalmiya and Niranjan Shah, the Indian board secretary. The ECB head is particularly annoyed because England had to change their itinerary after being coerced into playing the extra one-dayer.

"Once we made the decision to warm up in Calcutta it was important to be given good practice facilties," he said. "That hasn't happened and it's totally unacceptable." Lamb was forced to agree to the sixth game when Dalmiya threatened to withdraw India from the fourth Test against England at The Oval next summer. That would have cost England £2m.

This latest quarrel is probably a mere warm-up exercise for Dalmiya who presumably likes at least one argument before breakfast the way nicotine addicts need a fag. He made his comeback into cricket administration last autumn after being out of the mainstream since his controversial tenure as president of the International Cricket Council ended.

Within a month he was denigrating the decision of the match referee, Mike Denness, to punish several Indian players, including Sachin Tendulkar, after a Test match at Port Elizabeth. That led to the next match being declared unofficial.

Dalmiya then left the ICC facing calamity when he said that India would pick for the first Test against England the batsman, Virender Sehwag, who was due to serve a one-match ban. The match and the series was in danger of cancellation before Dalmiya backed down with four days to go.

Then came the one-day series spat. Questions of mere practice are unlikely to worry him unduly.

* India have named three spinners in their squad for the first three matches of the one-day series against England – the leg-spinner Anil Kumble and off-spinners Harbhajan Singh and Sharandeep Singh.

INDIA SQUAD: SC Ganguly (cap), SR Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, V Sehwag, HK Badani, D Mongia, A Kumble, A Ratra*, H Singh, S Singh, J Srinath, AB Agarkar, Z Khan, S Bangar.