You can tell the Cricket season is with us, it's pouring with rain and the English bowling attack is knackered after its exploits in India this winter.

Although I moved out of Essex forty years ago next October they are still my team, just as West Ham will always be my football team. I scour the pages daily for a report on how Essex are doing, check the scoreboards and tables, watch them whenever they are on Sky and still feel a twinge of disappointment when they lose.

Watching cricket, it has been said, is almost a Zen-like experience. Most of us cannot see the ball being bowled, the batsman hitting the ball or the fielders taking catches or stopping the ball. The only time we recognise the whereabouts of the ball is when we see the fielders running for it or hear the familiar clatter as the ball hits an advertising hoarding. We rely on television, with its slow-mo's, super slow mo's and hawkeye to help us enjoy the game.

Test cricket is the equivalent of football's premiership, the County Championship the equivalent of the Ryman League in terms of attendance. We can name England's front line attack: Flintoff, Harmison, Hoggard and Jones (or Mahomood) but who keeps wicket for Gloucestershire these days?

Even test cricket only holds onto our imagination when we are playing Australia, the other test countries are interesting more for the fervour of their supporters than for the hostility we show to them.

Still, there's nothing to beat the sound of leather on willow, at least until June 9th when the World Cup starts.