The carnival of colour can begin - and England need it to swing

The final on June 20 will be shown on both channels and the silent prayer is that 1999 might become for English cricket what 1966 has been for English football. It is an unlikely dream but nobody knows who will win it. A World Cup is like a Grand National: every year the experts nominate three to beat the field at Aintree but invariably they miss the winner.

Everyone knew last time that Sri Lanka were not to be underestimated but few really believed that if one of the host nations was to win it would not be either Pakistan or India. This time the two to beat are South Africa and Australia but if Pakistan find a fair wind, with Wasim Akram and the ferociously fast Shoaib Akhtar to the fore, they could sail past anyone.

A serious case can be made, also, for the holders, Sri Lanka, though they have had a bad run since winning the triangular tournament in England late last summer against England and a tired South Africa. Muttiah Muralitharan cannot win too many one-day matches on his own, as he did the Oval Test last year. Since winning the last tournament Sri Lanka have won 42 matches but lost 35. Like England, they badly need to win the opening match to get a kick-start.

Neither Zimbabwe nor Kenya are to be underestimated, but England, New Zealand, India and the West Indies are the only other possible winners. The latter two possess the two greatest attacking batsmen in the world in Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, plus two fast bowlers each of high quality: Srinath, Prasad, Ambrose and Walsh. England and New Zealand, by contrast, will rely on teamwork and all-round competence. The Indians proved in 1983 that it is possible for a side of relatively modest ability to overcome more gifted combinations, especially on the somewhat bland pitches which typify English conditions these days rather more than the green seamers from the half-forgotten era of uncovered pitches. England, with only one genuine fast bowler and a lone finger spinner, can hope to win the tournament only if there is movement in the pitches.

The soundest bet must be South Africa. There is little to choose between themselves and Australia and judged by the players Australia have left out - Slater, Blewett, Langer, Law, Gillespie, MacGill, Symonds et al - no question which nation possesses the greater strength in depth. But by beating Aus-tralia in the Commonwealth Games final last year the South Africans proved to themselves that they could overcome a major opponent in a big match and that they are both focused and organised.

Donald, Pollock, Klusener and Kallis, with Elworthy in support, represents the best pool of fast and fast-medium bowlers in the tournament and Herschelle Gibbs, superb fielder and dashing strokeplayer, has improved the side which should have beaten England in last year's Test series.

I suspect, too, that Australia should have made Steve Waugh the Test captain and Shane Warne the one-day leader. For all their talent and experience, the Waugh twins are, at 33, past their peak as one-day cricketers. And yet, a voice says: "Never write off Australia." They have in Warne a great bowler desperate to reestablish himself on the world stage; and in Glenn McGrath the cricketing equivalent of a hungry leopard; a predator of calm, unyielding menace.

Unless the weather is a killjoy, the ECB, criticised for failing to get more than half of the eight "global partners" they had set out to enlist, should be seen in a more attractive light from now onwards. There might, indeed, have been fewer errors of judgment if they had not decided to appoint outside agents to run matters such as public relations and ticket sales. It is not as if they have no experience themselves of running big matches. Both the host counties and the guest nations seem delighted so far with the preparations made to give them good practice facilities and the right preparation.

What is more, they are competing for a far higher prize pool - £625,000 - than ever before. If the overall profit for the tournament is the anticipated £30 million, England will keep about £13 million, and the other Test countries £1.5 million each. England actually made a loss from the tournament in 1996 jointly staged by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who retained the major share of the profits.

The stimulus which the tournament should give to the game in the United Kingdom is only part of the cricketing, as opposed to monetary, reward which would accrue if all goes well. The thrust of the ICC has been towards "globalisation" since the MCC in effect gave the world body its independence. Paternalistic government had its advantages, but it was out of date and this tournament should stimulate interest in parts of the world where cricket has no more than a toe-hold.

That includes inner-city areas of Britain where football is king. There is a healthier position at the base of the cricket pyramid in the UK than there was and a need for many more of the development officers now at work in the 38 counties if children keen to play the game are to get the chance to do so. But soccer has so dominated the sporting scene in recent years and to such an increasing extent that cricket is perceived by some, including the ECB's marketing director Terry Blake, to have lost what he calls "street cred". His dream is that it is about to attract a new audience in its coat of many colours.

For those who already know and love the game, the World Cup is the only one-day tournament which really matters. From the start it has inspired the great players. Nobody who saw the 1975 final will forget Clive Lloyd's powerful and exuberant hundred from 94 balls, or the fielding of Viv Richards which followed. Four years later at Lord's it was Richards himself who made the matchwinning hundred, Collis King who murdered England's medium pacers and Joel Garner, with toe-crunching yorkers, who overcame a much stronger batting side than England have now, after Geoff Boycott and Mike Brearley had spent too long laying the base.

India upset the West Indies in the 1983 final and Australia and England ruined the party for the hosts by winning their semi-finals in Pakistan and India before the Calcutta final of 1987. After that the lights came on, the coloured clothes appeared and the World Cup become the darling of the countries from the subcontinent. Wasim Akram and Mushtaq Ahmed were too good for England in their third final appearance at Melbourne; Aravinda de Silva outstanding in Sri Lanka's triumph over Australia last time.

It is the shining of great stars on a worldwide stage and the emergence of new and unexpected heroes, such as Richards in 1975 or Inzimam-ul-Haq in 1992, which gives each World Cup its peculiar allure. Nothing but incessant rain, surely, can stop the carnival now.

From World Cup special, May 10, 1999