Cricket / Over at Last: Ray of hope from hard graft and fighting spirit: A summer enlivened by Lara but beset by mediocrity raises questions over England's Ashes mission. Martin Johnson reports

THE 1994 cricket season gurgled to a goose-pimpled and watery close on Monday, although autumn's leaves will still not have finished falling before England's cricketers are reaching for the zinc block, sunglasses and floppy hats in Western Australia next month. It's a rotten job, but someone's got to do it.

When it comes to locking horns with the ancient enemy, a rotten job is generally what England make of it, so what are we to make of Raymond Illingworth's pre-tour optimism? England chairmen do not, of course, send off their troops with a curt, 'let's be fair, we couldn't beat Wagga Wagga's 2nd XI with this lot . . .', but Illingworth's apparently genuine belief that England can end three consecutive Ashes humiliations this winter can scarcely be based on five months of purring contentment at the state of county cricket.

The Rolls-Royce of the English game this summer has been, in Illingworth's unstated view, more of a Lada with a Lara, and neither did the fact that his old county, Leicestershire, finish second in the Championship exactly have him brimming with joy.

If Illingworth thinks he has found 16 players capable of regaining the Ashes, then he certainly thinks it is in spite of the system rather than because of it. Four-day cricket was meant to get the cream rising to the top, and all Illingworth can see is a couple of cartons of slightly off skimmed milk.

Four-day cricket, however, remains a better way of identifying a Test cricketer than the three-day version, which still has a hardcore of romantic support, largely from county treasurers bemoaning the loss of their festival weeks, and those who have forgotten that the height of tactical input involved two captains haggling over the declaration target inside the second-evening beer tent.

However, four-day cricket will not represent a much better option while it is played, as it has been for much of the summer, on sub-standard pitches. In terms of bowlers making the switch to Test cricket, versed in such subtleties as late away swing, it is the equivalent of assembling a team of freshwater trout-ticklers from the deck of a North Sea trawler.

Illingworth is concerned enough about pitches to suggest that a chunk of the ruling body's annual Test match loot should be used to employ its own groundsmen, and his opinion of the County Championship as a soft competition goes back to his Leicestershire captaincy days in the early 1970s, when even then he was advocating two separate leagues, with promotion and relegation.

However, Warwickshire should care. The amount of fingers they can raise to their detractors is one fewer than the number of trophies currently residing at Edgbaston, and they have emphatically confirmed that success in the domestic game is as much about teamwork, and hard graft from the foot soldiers, as individual brilliance. Brian Lara was undoubtedly an inspirational factor, but no one proved the point that individual talent will not work without an overall chemistry more than Surrey. They have not won a thing since they won the NatWest Trophy in 1982, although no one underachieves more than those historical dinosaurs, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Yorkshire have not won the championship since 1968, and when Lancashire last won it outright, George V was in Buckingham Palace and Ramsay MacDonald at Number 10. The England captain made 899 championship runs for Lancashire last season, which was considerably less than he forked out in pound notes to various disciplinary bodies, and when he and Mike Gatting step off the aeroplane in Australia next month, they will have almost as much form between them as on the first convict boat to arrive in Botany Bay.

Atherton, on the brink of resignation in August, curiously finds himself in almost as strong a position as he began the summer, the media scrutiny over the dirt in the pocket business having been overtaken by a wave of public sympathy after the pettifogging fine slapped on him at The Oval by the International Cricket Council referee Peter Burge. All Atherton had in his pocket by the end of the summer was mothballs.

Atherton, in fact, was the central character in one of the summer's bigger issues - the increasing intrusion of the television camera. First it was run-outs and stumpings; now it is a battle for players to avoid picking their nose, never mind the seam.

The BBC cannot be blamed for what the players get up to, although the arbitrary nature of where the director happens to have his cameras pointing at any given time will inevitably lead to discrepancies in identifying miscreants, and one of these days they will miss someone doing a hat- trick while they are away covering the 3.10 at Newbury.

However, the Beeb's TV coverage last summer was a good deal more sensible than it was on radio. A national treasure was lost in Brian Johnston, and a tabloid newspaper feel (their correspondent, in fact, writes for one) has begun to creep in. The 'off with his head' hysteria over Atherton could scarcely have been been more voluble had it been Radio 5 Live at the French Revolution, and one of the more farcical moments of the summer was when Allan Lamb was trotted out to call for Atherton's resignation after being fined for dissent.

Over rates continue to short- change the paying public, and the time has come either to fine players per session, and/or start reclaiming the lost overs from their lunch breaks. In the latter case, England's problems would be solved at a stroke by reappointing Gatting as captain.

The most uplifting part of the international summer was in England suddenly discovering an aggression to their cricket which has given rise to most of the optimism, perhaps dangerously so, over this winter's Ashes mission.

Phillip DeFreitas and Darren Gough began it with their blistering counter-attack in the final Test, and the biggest bonus of the series was in the metamorphosis of Graeme Hick, from diffident prodder to ruthless destroyer. The new- look Hick versus a slightly longer in the tooth Merv is enough to whet the most jaded appetite this winter.

WHO WON WHAT IN 1994 ----------------------------------------------------------------- BRITANNIC ASSURANCE COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP ----------------------------------------------------------------- P W L D Bat Bwl Tot Warwickshire (16) 17 11 1 5 41 55 272 (pounds 48,500) Leicestershire (9) 17 8 7 2 42 60 230 (pounds 24,250) Notts (7) 17 8 5 4 39 51 218 (pounds 14,000) Middlesex (1) 17 7 3 7 43 57 212 (pounds 7,250) Northants (4) 17 8 4 5 28 53 209 (pounds 3,750) Essex (11) 17 7 5 5 32 63 207 Surrey (6) 17 7 7 3 32 57 201 Sussex (10) 17 7 5 5 28 60 200 Kent (8) 17 6 7 4 44 58 198 Lancashire (13) 17 8 6 3 32 59 194 Somerset (5) 17 7 7 3 32 47 191 Gloucs(17) 17 5 8 4 28 56 172 Hampshire (13) 17 4 7 6 32 55 159 Yorkshire (12) 17 4 6 7 38 57 159 Worcs (2) 17 4 6 7 42 52 158 Durham (18) 17 4 10 3 32 57 153 Derbyshire (15) 17 4 9 4 25 54 143 Glamorgan (3) 17 2 8 7 29 50 111 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1993 positions in brackets. Lancashire deducted 25 points for an unsuitable pitch. -----------------------------------------------------------------

NATWEST TROPHY Winners: Worcestershire (pounds 31,000). Runners-up: Warwickshire (pounds 15,500). Semi-finalists: Surrey, Kent (pounds 7,750 each). Quarter-finalists: Northamptonshire, Somerset, Glamorgan, Derbyshire (pounds 3,875 each).

BENSON AND HEDGES CUP Winners: Warwickshire (pounds 31,000). Runners-up: Worcestershire (pounds 15,500). Semi-finalists: Surrey, Hampshire (pounds 7,750 each). Quarter-finalists: Kent, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Essex (pounds 3,875 each).

----------------------------------------------------------------- AXA EQUITY AND LAW SUNDAY LEAGUE ----------------------------------------------------------------- P W L T NR Pts Warwickshire (10) 17 13 3 0 1 54 (pounds 31,000) Worcestershire (16) 17 12 4 0 1 50 (pounds 15,500) Kent (2) 17 12 5 0 0 48 (pounds 7,500) Lancashire (6) 17 11 5 0 1 46 (pounds 3,875) Yorkshire (9) 17 10 6 0 1 42 Surrey (3) 17 9 5 0 3 42 Glamorgan (1) 17 9 6 1 1 40 Derbyshire (11) 17 8 7 0 2 36 Durham (7) 17 6 7 1 3 32 Leicestershire (14) 17 7 9 0 1 30 Notts (17) 17 6 8 0 3 30 Hampshire (15) 17 7 10 0 0 28 Northants (5) 17 6 9 1 1 28 Middlesex (8) 17 6 10 0 1 26 Sussex (4) 17 5 11 0 1 22 Somerset (18) 17 5 12 0 0 20 Essex (12) 17 4 11 1 1 20 Gloucestershire (13) 17 4 12 0 1 18 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1993 positions in brackets. -----------------------------------------------------------------

(Photograph omitted)