RAINBOW DAYS..

There was a time when, if England needed a new fast bowler, someone would arrive from Lord`s, whistle down the nearest coal mine and a lift full would appear on the surface. So why is it that the current England cricket team are stuffed full of South African born and bred players? There`s Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, even Andrew Strauss and now the newly qualified Englishman, Craig Kieswetter. Surely, at least three of them should be battling it out with Jacques Kallis, Graham Smith and their colleagues for a place in the South African side. I have the feeling that there is so much that is desperate about the depth of English cricket talent that we are quite happy to put up with the embarrassment of fielding half a team of non-English born and bred players just so we can compete on the world stage.

This weekend, in Vilnius, the Great Britain tennis team played Lithuania away in Group Two of the Euro-African Zone, the third tier of the Davis Cup. Since it was Ireland who beat Turkey, Britain is now officially worse at tennis than Lithuania and Ireland. And there could be further embarrassment to come in the summer. If Britain lose to Turkey the weekend after Wimbledon, we would drop into the lowest division, on the same level as Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Malta, Moldova and San Marino. The Great Britain team captain, John Lloyd, (pictured) became the first British captain to lose five successive ties, and he was considering whether to resign last night. “I’ll go away and think about things, and ask myself, 'Did I screw up? Could someone else do a better job?,’ he mused.

Good questions, Lloydy. But here`s a suggestion. Get down to Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and have a look around the tennis courts down there. Who knows, you might find a few players knocking around with South African fathers and British mothers or even grandparents who might jump at the chance to smother their domestic inadequacies by becoming heroes over here. Greg Rusedski, the well known precedent-setting Canadian Brit springs to mind. After all, if it`s good enough for Lord`s, it must be good enough for Wimbledon, where £29million a year is just waiting to be spent on even the faintest hope of respectability.

New balls, please.