Cricket: Taylor tips opener's vote with late swing: England face Australia in the first Texaco Trophy match today but recent history suggests the one-day winners will lose the Test series

IN culinary terms, we are about to start a formal, dinner-jacketed, six-course banquet (the Ashes) with a chimps' tea-party, where the yardstick is not so much haute cuisine as the amount of jelly and ice-cream dripping from the wall-

paper.

However, the House Full notices at all three venues over the next five days illustrate that the one-day internationals have their own special appeal, and there is also a fair amount of evidence that the 55-overs bun fight actually does have some bearing on the weightier issues ahead. Historically, he who stuffs himself in the Texaco tuck shop then gets a good stuffing when it comes to the main course.

In the last five single-tourist summers, the Texaco Trophy winners have lost four and drawn one of the Test series. As England have won the Texaco on all five occasions, this is not good news for the Ashes, and the inference that the winners stand to pick up psychological bonus points can be dismissed as so much baloney. Picking up the swag is about the extent of it, which this year will total pounds 25,000 for victory in all three games.

In the five Ashes summers since the two forms of combat began running in tandem in 1972, Australia have only twice won the one-day series - in 1981 and 1985 - and on both occasions they lost the big one. If there is a final geeing-up message for both teams as they leave their respective Old Trafford dressing-rooms this morning, it could well be: 'Go out there and do your worst, lads.'

However, no form of competition between England and Australia is anything less than flat- out warfare, and it was quite possibly a bizarre incident in one of the Texacos during the last Ashes series here in 1989 that had a distinct bearing on England parting company with the urn.

Allan Border, until then the most easy-going of captains, was finally convinced by Ian Chappell to come to England with the attitude that all Pommies are bastards (at least between 11am and 6pm) and this was unwittingly reinforced by David Gower during the second one-dayer at Trent Bridge.

When Dean Jones, acting as a runner for the injured Ian Healy, was almost lapped by his partner in a frantic and comical dash for two, Gower's suggestion to umpire Dickie Bird that Healy on one leg was 'slightly quicker than Ben Johnson on two' led to Jones being sent off. Red card for Jones, red mist for Border. Long-term friends or not, for the rest of the summer Border barely offered Gower the time of day, and it was as much their ruthless streak as their ability that subsequently characterised Australia's cricket and unhinged both Gower and his team.

Border has as much right as anyone to be suffering from an overdose of ennui about these games, and when he said yesterday that 'one- day matches come and go', in his particular case they come rather more often than they go. The Australian captain plays his 254th one-day international today, which is only 33 less than Australia have ever taken part in.

The cash, and the traditional urge to put one over on the Poms, will ensure that Australia will be at full throttle for these one-dayers, although only if they part company with the Ashes this summer will any serious thought be given to burning Merv's moustache, and placing the ashes inside an urn in the MCG pavilion.

There was some consideration being given by the tourists yesterday to leaving out their vice- captain, Mark Taylor, given the amount of runs pouring from the bats of the two younger bucks, Matthew Hayden and Michael Slater.

However, Taylor's 89 not out at Northampton on Sunday was enough for him to, as he put it, 'vote for himself', and he will probably receive the necessary endorsement from one or both of the two other selectors, Border and Bobby Simpson. Mark Waugh, who has a tendency, according to Border, to come in 'half asleep' down the order, will bat at No 2.

With Merv Hughes still not 100 per cent after a pre-tour knee operation, and Craig McDermott not yet fully firing, the tourists will be a shade more concerned about their bowling - and given the amount of overstepping they have been guilty of so far, they will be relieved that the two-runs-per-no-ball penalty this summer does not apply to international matches. It is a sign of something (and not just that people's feet are bigger nowadays) that the 1961 Australians went through an entire Ashes series here without bowling a single no-ball.

England's team preparation has been slightly disturbed by a hamstring injury to Neil Fairbrother, and a final decision will not be made until this morning. If Fairbrother is fit, the middle-order vacancy looks like going to another left-hander, Graham Thorpe, but if he is not, there is the possibility that Graham Gooch will drop down to No 5, and allow Mark Lathwell to make his international debut in his regular position as an opener.

ENGLAND (from): Gooch (capt), Stewart, Smith, Hick, Fairbrother, Thorpe, Lathwell, Ramprakash, Lewis, Pringle, Caddick, Jarvis, Illingworth, Cork.

AUSTRALIA (probable): Taylor, M Waugh, Boon, Border (capt), Martyn, S Waugh, Healy, May, Hughes, Reiffel, McDermott.

Graduation day for Thorpe, page 34

Scoreboard, page 35