Cricket: Women heed Indian wake-up call

Pete Davies, in Chandigarh, sees an England side bonding together in adversity

In The past fortnight, England's travel plans have involved four wake-up calls at four in the morning or earlier; they avoided a fifth bleary dawn yesterday by opting to travel to Chandigarh from Delhi by bus instead of train. Whether taking six hours to go 160 miles on India's pot-holed and hair-raising roads makes up for two extra hours in bed is debatable, but by now one madcap journey just blurs into another anyway.

In the circumstances, England go into today's quarter- final with Sri Lanka in remarkably good humour. Battling through an itinerary which the men would have turned down flat, they now joke that the organisers should forget the cricket, stick the surviving eight teams in an anarchic airport lounge, feed them all curry at random intervals, and the last side still standing is the winner.

A mix of wit and forbearance runs right through the squad. Charlotte Edwards, who turned 18 last Wednesday, said before the tournament that she wasn't nervous about coming here because "the others will look after me". Now she says: "I'm really enjoying it. It just all makes me laugh. The begging and poverty could get to you, but you've just got to set it aside. You'd cry if you didn't laugh, eh?"

At the other end of the scale, Jan Brittin, the 38-year-old playing in her fourth World Cup, says this trip has been better than her previous two visits. "When you think how much they've taken on, it's actually been remarkably well-organised."

After the trains, planes, and automobiles of the past two weeks, some might say that is pushing forbearance to the point of saintliness, but in fairness, the women's cricket World Cup has never been so big, and the local organisers want to use it to promote the women's game as widely as possible in this vast, vexing, and utterly enthralling country. With all the remaining games broadcast live on TV, and considerable press interest, England are more than happy to play their part.

For all that, though, the competition had 11 entrants, only five of whom could truly be described as capable cricket teams. In the first quarter- final in Lucknow yesterday, Australia barely broke sweat in disposing of Holland by 115 runs; England will expect to do much the same to Sri Lanka. Ireland are unlikely to trouble New Zealand unduly in Bombay on Tuesday, and the only quarter-final that looks unpredictable is India's meeting with South Africa in Patna tomorrow.

Patna can be intimidating - England were driven from the field under a hale of missiles there two years ago - but South Africa, while new to this level of competition, have a massive spirit about them, while the Indians are prone to fits of the vapours. Restricting New Zealand in their group game to 176, they should have cruised past that total. Instead they fell to bits, and the best game so far ended tied. My money is on South Africa for an upset. In the former West Indian batsman Conrad Hunte they have a coach one England player describes simply as "the most inspiring man I've ever met", and that inspiration may well make the difference.

As for England, losing to Australia on Friday was a salutary shock to the system, and there is a feeling about the squad that suggests that Sri Lankans today may find themselves on the wrong end of an exorcism. The good thing about the defeat was that England - if they get through today - will not face a journey to war-torn Guwahati for the semi-final.

Peter Moralee, England's assistant coach, reports that the Chandigarh stadium and the field are top class, and expects his players to take full advantage. Assuming no calamitous outbreaks of illness or fatigue-induced delirium, a semi-final awaits against New Zealand in Madras on Boxing Day.