LONDON. Apr 30 (AFP): You have to admire English optimism. Over the past season their cricketers have been variously described as rabbit stew (the Australian media), dead sheep (the English media) and sporting Teletubbies (lan Botham) and still they believe they can win the World Cup.

Team tactics and selection seem to change by the week, their coach David Lloyd is given a vote of no confidence just before the tournament, most of their players are either old or infirm or unheard of. And still they talk up their chances.

The domestic game is a shambles. Schoolchildren prefer football. And the team has just lost eight of its last 10 one-dayers.

But ask Alec Stewart if his side can lift, the 1999 World Cup and. wrapping himself in the (lag of Saint George, he will confidently reply in the affirmative.

The hosts, it turns out. have a cunning plan. By staging the tournament in early summer, they hope to tailor it to English strengths. Pitches will be damp and green. Dew, humidity and cloud cover will be plentiful and the ball will swing and seam.

Hence the appearance of the likes of Mark Ealham and Ian Austin - a portly Lancashire professional with minimal international exposure - in the side.

Cannon fodder abroad, these purveyors of slow-medium deliveries that wobble and dip in ihe air will prove deadly - so the selectors hope - in home condi-

England's cautious batsmen will also thrive, nudging ones and twos, while the rest of the world's exotic strokeplayers -the very same batsmen who dominated the 1996 World Cup in India. Pakistan and Sri Lanka - will be left swinging at thin air.

It's a nice idea. In theory. Wouldn't it be funny, though. If the sun shone?

England should certainly fare better at home than abroad (they should also do better than three years ago, when they won just two games - against Holland and the United Arab Emirates) but the propaganda should not obscure the facts.

One - and despite home advantage - this is a very mediocre English side. And two, many overseas stars, from Wasim Akram to Alan Donald to Sachin Tendulkar to Aravinda de Silva, have played in English county cricket in recent years with conspicuous success. ,

On a good day. England could certainly beat anyone.

Stewart. Graeme Hick and Graham Thorpe are world-class batsmen and Darren Gough's pace will trouble the best.

The rest of the side, however, will not keep the rest of the world awake at night. The allrounders - Adam Hollioake. Ealham. Austin and the improving Andrew Flintoff - do not belong in the same class as Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock of South Africa, or Australian Steve Waugh or Wasim Akram of Pakistan.

The lack of spin - Robert Croft bowls a tignt line but is not considered threatening enough for Test cricket - is another weakness, as are the abundance of grey hairs.

England, indeed, will field the oldest side in the tournament. with only one player under 27. The medical staff will be praying that Thorpe’s back holds up - Atherton's has already given way - and that Neil Fairbrother's hamstrings do not twang again. Things might have been different. At the end of 1997, England put Hollioake in charge of a young, vibrant, experimental team packed full of all-rounders, pinch-hitters and new faces. The team duly won the Champions Trophy in Sharjah to great acclaim.

But when things turned sour, Hollioake and his innovations were ditched.

The old guards were recalled, but with conspicuous lack of success. Their most recent outings saw them outclassed by Australia in the final of a tri-nations tournament at the start of the year, then miss out against India and Pakistan in Sharjah, recording one win out of four. Hardly the stuff of champions.

This will be the fourth World Cup to be staged in England. The home team have yet to lift the trophy, making it to the semifinals in 1975. the final in 1979 and the last four again in 1983.

Could this be their year? Some Englishmen think so. You have to admire their optimism.