BEYOND THE BOUNDARY; All we need is a tie at Trent Bridge, followed by a one-wicket win for England at The Oval, and absolute perfection will have been achieved

At Sunday's post-Test press conference Michael Atherton remarked that Dominic Cork was having "a golden spell". As a statement, this was as unarguable as most things said at press conferences. But as a choice of words it was interesting. Cricketers don't often use terms like golden. Terrific, tremendous, brilliant - yes. Golden, on the whole, no, unless it's attached to "arm", and can therefore be used with a bit of attitude to denote the sort of bowler - quite unlike Cork, of course - who takes wickets with bad balls.

Atherton put his finger on something, and not just about Cork. Cricket itself is in the middle of a golden spell. We are two-thirds of the way through the best Test series involving England since 1981, and the first of any kind ever to have been two-all with two to play. All we need is a tie at Trent Bridge, followed by a one-wicket win for England at The Oval, and absolute perfection will have been achieved. One or two people in my office have been saying this is what happens when two not very good teams meet. They evidently haven't noticed the part played in the series by Lara, Campbell, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop, Atherton, Smith, Thorpe, Cork or Fraser, all of whom are either established world-class players, or playing as if they were. Both sides are brittle, for sure, but that doesn't make them bad.

It's not just at the top level that everything in the garden is rosy - 1995 is shaping up as a year so golden, it can even offer a hard-fought struggle for the Britannic Assurance County Championship.

There have been years when the one thing you could be Britannically Assured of was that the Championship would be a two-horse race. Last year looked like being one of them, but in the end it wasn't that good. Surrey, who led the field almost continuously from early May to late July, dribbled away to finish seventh. Warwickshire only took the top spot a year ago yesterday, but a month later, on 2 September, they had finished the job.

The fact that the same horse won most of the other races led some punters to the conclusion that county standards were lower than ever. A couple of months ago, the outlook was even more bleak. Four-day games were ending in two or three, and several teams, including the early leaders, Northants, kept getting bowled out in double figures, as if they had looked at England and decided that was the way to behave. Like the film prize that Richard Gere was judging the other day, the Britannic pennant was in danger of not being awarded on the grounds that nobody had done enough to deserve it.

Now all that has changed. Last weekend's game between Northants and Warwicks was as gritty and grudging as anything in the Sheffield Shield or the Red Stripe Cup. "It was a little bit like a war out there," Allan Lamb said. In many sporting contexts, that would be a depressing thing to hear. In the English County Championship, famously characterised by Rod Marsh as a game for pie-throwers, it was thoroughly refreshing.

Northants and Warwicks have more in common than a record of won eight, lost two and drawn one. Each has a leading international bowler - Allan Donald, who was a sure thing, and Anil Kumble, who was an inspired punt. Each has a captain who has played for England but is not very English. Lamb and Dermot Reeve are tough, ingenious, indomitable individuals who share an ability to take the game by the scruff, as the players say.

If Warwickshire's annus mirabilis had the air of a fluke, they have banished it this year by doing almost as well without Lara and with a bad run of injuries. They would be worthy winners. So would Northants, whose spirit is epitomised by David Capel, a nice guy showing extra bite after a few sessions in the sports psychologist's chair.

Nor is the pennant certain to go to one of these two. Middlesex have cruised into the running with ominous ease. Mike Gatting's bad patch is over and Mark Ramprakash has gone back to county cricket like a man changing pounds into lire - he's got the same amount, but suddenly he feels like a millionaire. If Alec Stewart remains unfit, the destiny of the title may hinge on whether England give Robin Smith's place to Ramprakash, or plump for something more Smith-like and send for Lamb. He is nearly two years younger than John Emburey, and itching to add to his six Test hundreds against West Indies.

Lancashire, like Middlesex, have a game in hand. If both win that game, the top four will all be within five points of each other. In other words, it's too close to call. But columnists aren't paid to say sensible things like that. My money is on Northants, because the August pitches will suit Kumble more than anyone, and because Lamb seems hungrier than the other captains. He is intensely aware that Northants have never won the title. As with Queensland, who won their first Shield this year, the drought is so perplexing, it can't last much longer.

Whoever wins, it will have been a memorable contest. It won't mean that county cricket has solved all its problems. There is still too much of it; mediocrity abounds, and the benefit system, as Nick Cook showed on this page on Monday, only encourages it. The debate about the structure of the game - remains urgent. So don't tell your county chairman, but things are definitely looking up.