ENGLAND will call on the services of an 18-year-old rookie leg-spinner and a former Australian Test player in an effort to give themselves a better chance of unravelling the mysteries of Shane Warne.

Chris Schofield has been plucked out of the Central Lancashire League to bowl at England's batsmen before the Texaco Trophy series and the first Test at Edgbaston.

Schofield, who plays for Littleborough and has been offered a contract by Lancashire for the rest of the season, will spend a day in the nets at Headingley next week and two at Edgbaston trying to convince .

``It will be good experience for me and if I bowl well it will give them some valuable batting practice,'' he said modestly. ``I was delighted when the England coach David Lloyd rang me and asked me to help.''

The Australian element in England's net preparation is Peter Sleep, Lancashire's second XI coach, who played 14 Tests between 1978 and 1989.

Former pupil David Courtney, who runs a cricket goods company in Cheltenham, has donated a new clock and Ronald Kelly, recently retired as a governor, has arranged for a dormer to be installed in the pavilion so that the new timepiece can be suitably housed. The only element which will be missing, when the clock is officially ``opened'' next Wednesday before the start of the championship match against Essex, will be Bird himself.

The school had hoped that he would be in attendance, but he is on duty at Edgbaston, so David Constant and Barrie Leadbeter will have to give the umpires' seal of approval.

Wasim has also invited Yasin's family to meet him and watch him in action for Lancashire.

The answer is Britain, or more specifically the Devon County Wanderers, though new research suggests that the side who beat All Paris in 1900 never received their gold medals . . . and probably did not even know that they had taken part in the Olympics.

Clifford Jiggens explains, in the current edition of the Journal of the Cricket Society, that the match was billed as part of the Paris World Fair, and further suggests that it was one of the events tagged on to the Olympic results 12 years after it had taken place.

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral was also asked to intervene, but the Indian board responded sternly that they were outside government control.

Sachin Tendulkar, who succeeded Azharuddin as India's captain, hinted yesterday that there would be no easy way back. ``He is a great batsman who can come back into the team by making runs,'' said Tendulkar sternly.

A few years back Maru was taken to one side by captain Mark Nicholas and told that, at 5ft 6in, he would never achieve the bounce to be effective.

The following morning the Hampshire players turned up at Southampton to find Maru hanging upside down from scaffolding in a belated effort to increase his stature.

The height of optimism one might say . . .