Hard task to stop party falling flat

The NatWest Series is billed as England's early summer party. But with two of the classiest sides in one-day cricket invited this year they will do well to be still standing come the final singsong at Lord's on 23 June. Winning the trophy last season was relatively straightforward once England put their act together.

West Indies soon fell by the wayside and the only real disappointment during a low-key final against Zimbabwe came when Alec Stewart narrowly failed to contribute a third consecutive century to the team's six-wicket win.

This summer, though, Australia and Pakistan - World Cup winners and runners-up respectively on English soil in 1999 - will be favourites to qualify for another Lord's showdown and in turn leave their hosts with nothing more than crumbs.

Both sets of visitors are beatable and, indeed, were beaten in this country two years ago.

But they possess the flair, flexibility and all-round strength England's selectors are still striving to find when it comes to limited-overs cricket.

That search is about to be stepped up. Two main lessons were learned in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last winter as England lost five of their six one-day internationals.

Firstly, that middle-order batsmen need to be innovative enough to keep the scoreboard ticking over in the crucial mid-innings overs. Secondly, that bowlers who neither bat nor field to any great degree struggle to justify their places. England have 18 months to find the right squad to put up a fight in South Africa when the World Cup is next staged.

They may be on the right lines already. Certainly, Alistair Brown deserves his opportunity to bat in the middle order after several seasons of consistently heavy scoring for Surrey.