Mind you, take away the bouncy castle and the surf machine, and you were left with the usual handful of frozen diehards wondering which would arrive sooner - Mark Ramprakash's century or hypothermia.

Warwickshire's Open Day and England A versus The Rest embraced the same laudable concept - catch 'em while they're young although the suspicion is that had the kids had nothing else to do but sit down and watch the cricket, they'd have been lost forever to basketball and Birmingham City.

There is no game quite like cricket for early season rituals. People spend entire winters dreaming of the first thwack of leather upon willow, knowing full well that they'll spend the opening weeks of the season huddled underneath sheepskin rugs.

It is another longstanding cricketing tradition that nothing is ever ready for the start of the season and at Edgbaston at the moment, they've got the builders in. ``Owing to reconstruction,'' a voice came over the Tannoy, ``certain Open Day areas are closed.''

None of the seating areas were closed, though, and there were so many seats available that spectators could have parked themselves wherever they wanted. However, there is another cricketing tradition in which the homing instinct compels people to head for their customary spots. Hence, small knots of spectators sitting side-on to the action, about 200 yards from the pitch.

If it hadn't been for the amount of sweaters the players were wearing, they'd have been virtually invisible to the punters in the Rae Bank stand. Furthermore - it being another tradition to sit as far apart as possible - yesterday's spectators also required mobile phones to converse with each other.

For those armed with powerful binoculars, there was also the sight of umpire Dickie Bird sporting an enormous shiner - the result of accidentally poking himself in the eye with the shower nozzle on Saturday, his 64th birthday. It is not the sort of accident Harold has been prone to incur by over-enthusiastic raising of his index finger, although he did give Mark Butcher out lbw shortly after tea.

Already well ahead in the off-for-bad-light averages, this is Dickie's valedictory season - and in terms of one last chance to translate his sublime talent into a regular England place, it may also be Ramprakash's. Yesterday, we witnessed his propensity for taking nonchalant centuries off non-Test match attacks, which is nothing that the selectors were not already aware of.

The selectors are hoping to persuade Test match groundsmen to prepare wickets to suit England this summer, although lines of communication will have to be better than they were in 1993. Having ordered, on this very ground, a green seamer against Australia, England turned up to find a grassless desert.

Yesterday, the caterers in the Calthorpe Suite didn't get what they ordered either, because someone had pinched the tea time sandwiches. Mike Gatting, one of this summer's selectors, had already left, thus depriving the authorities of their No 1 suspect.