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Cricket is the only sport in which the West Indies compete as a single nation and now that US satellite television has seen an entire generation switch their role-model allegiances from George Headley and Wes Hall to Micky Mantle and Michael Jordan, the days have all but gone when individual brilliance more than made up for emotional affiliations to different flags.

The citizens of Barbados once boycotted an entire Test match when a fairly ordinary practitioner by the name of Anderson Cummins was not selected on his home ground, the Afro-proud Vivian Richards was routinely booed in the Asian strongholds of Guyana and Trinidad, and Brian Lara, who can barely travel 100 yards on his own island without bumping into a statue of himself, would struggle to get served at a bar in Antigua.

More tastefully kitted out than most of the competitors in all maroon, a more appropriate garb for this year's World Cup would have been a set of Harlequins' rugby jerseys, and Clive Lloyd, the biggest unifying force in West Indian cricket when he was captain, is finding life in this area a touch more difficult as team manager.

One of the few gifts apparently not showered upon Lara in recent years is an alarm clock, and during this winter's series against Australia, as Lloyd was explaining away yet another late appearance as being due to ``radio commitments'', his captain was telling another group of reporters that he had been unavoidably detained at the doctor's.

So it was a not unfamiliar scenario at Bristol on Saturday when two different stories emerged concerning Courtney Walsh's non-appearance in the West Indies' first warm-up match against his old county, Gloucestershire. ``Not selected,'' said Walsh. ``Injured,'' said Lloyd. The manager's contention that the old warhorse needed to be nursed through the competition might also have struck a recalcitrant note with Walsh, who would volunteer to bowl the entire 50 overs if the rules permitted.

Lara, meantime, was in one of his less obliging moods, absenting himself from the official squad photograph and responding to inquiries about a damaged wrist that is unlikely to see him play against his old county at Edgbaston today, with a curt: ``Go and ask the doctors.'' Cynics might say that a more reliable authority than his GP would be his golf pro.

There is no side whose form is more difficult to predict than the West Indies, but with Carl Hooper out of the squad and not even Lara liable to produce batting miracles on every visit to the crease, the portents for this World Cup are not good. They are also one of the more elderly sides, and as the team bus decanted them on to the County Ground's puddle-laden car park on Saturday morning, it looked a bit like a coach arrival for Saga holidays.

Neither was there any real chance of a meaningful game, given that this tournament has been scheduled in a way calculated to make only the West Indian Guyanese contingent feel at home, well used as they are to turning up in Georgetown to find the Bourda Oval fit for nothing much other than trout fishing.

The visitors limbered up rather gingerly, as they were entitled to in hamstring-twanging temperatures, and while the steel band did their best to capture the flavour of the occasion by belting out calypso music, the anorak-clad spectators were pouring into the pavilion not so much in search of a rum daiquiri as a mug of Bovril.

The West Indies made 58 for three in 16.3 overs before the rain came, batting with considerably more elan than the conditions warranted, and donating all three wickets through strokes apparently born of a desire to get back to the warmth of the pavilion as quickly as possible.

In fact, as a warm-up exercise it was a better work-out for the spectators, who were able to huddle beneath their umbrellas brushing up on the finer points of the Duckworth-Lewis system. We have, in fact, already seen how well it works up at Durham, when the home team scored more runs than the opposition, in fewer overs, and, er, lost.