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Wasim Akram is back in England again for one last hurrah and he feels happy. Satisfied, too. You what? ``Yes, satisfied,'' he repeats, floating for a brief, blessed moment on some fluffy cloud, where birds tweet and angels strum harps. ``The whole team is very conscientious. The boys are enjoying their cricket.''

Well, well. Can this really be the captain of Pakistan speaking? The leader of a side famous both for brilliance and the sort of mutual enmity more usually associated with a Sicilian village? It is. ``Waz'', of Lahore, Old Trafford and, before long, Channel 4, is once more wearing the stripes and his players are on parade, clicking their heels.

At Derby on Saturday, before rain cut short the day, they looked a well-groomed lot and he looked what he always has been, a prince among cricketers. Lean, lithe and fit after years of shoulder trouble, he remains an impressive figure.

Nor has he finished. He turns 33 in June and reckons he can keep going for another three years, enough time to smash, or set, some dazzling records. For the time being, he is keeping his eye on the next ball.

Pakistan approach the World Cup in good shape. There may be ructions at home, where the judicial inquiry into allegations of match-fixing seems to have been running longer than Cats, but their players are primed. Superbly equipped with bat and ball, and possessing plenty of experience in English conditions, they must be ranked alongside Australia and South Africa as the most likely winners. So long as they don't turn on one another.

Mind you, they would be failing in their duty if there weren't a few squabbles along the way. Javed Miandad resigned as coach two weeks ago, for reasons that have yet to be disclosed publicly, and Wasim is in no mood to disclose them. It is said, on the q.t., that Javed, the master batsman who retired after the last World Cup, three years ago, thought he should still be in the team!

That is the landscape in which the Pakistan captain has to operate. It is a world of nudges and winks, of threats and false promises, and daggers that rest uneasily in their scabbards. Wasim has done the job twice before, being unseated once and resigning the second time, and last year he vowed to retire rather than submit a third time to the torture-rack of insults, accusations and lies.

Yet he is back at the helm, fully aware of the hopes they carry. ``Great is not the word,'' he says of those expectations. ``We are a good side and we know we have a good chance of doing well, although our religion tells us never to be too sure of anything. 'There by the grace of God'.

``Cricketing pressure is fine. If people want to criticise us for our performance that is acceptable. But in Pakistan even the journalism is personal. They enjoy humiliating their own players. Why, I don't know. But the boys have taken strength from what has been written in the papers and gelled really well. They can leave the pressure to me.''

Wasim was once a golden boy himself and he became a king when he helped Pakistan win the World Cup in Australia in 1992, taking the man-of-the-match award when they beat England in the final. That was one of his great moments. His worst came during the last tournament when he returned home from India to find effigies of himself being burned in the streets of Lahore. His 'offence' was to have pulled out of the quarter-final in Bangalore with injury.

Since then his father has been kidnapped (and later released), accusations have been made against him and his family, implicating them of involvement with bookmakers, and Wasim, sick with worry, has become a diabetic. ``I need to have three jabs a day.'' He gives credit to his therapist wife, Huma, for helping him pull through some very dark days.

When he says ``there are no privileges for me'', he knows whereof he speaks. Pakistan captains are utterly disposable, to be spat out whenever a victim is required. ``I am not worried about myself but I do care about the younger players. People in Pakistan have to think about the future and I wonder how they will cope.''

He feels encouraged that some of the younger players ``have got stronger, mentally'' in the past year. In the case of Shoaib Akhtar, the 23-year-old fast bowler, that development has accompanied a physical maturing. Akhtar is bowling faster than anybody in the world and the spectacle of him hurtling in like a sprinter, scattering stumps, will be one of the sights of the summer.

When Pakistan were last here for a Test series, three years ago, Wasim led them superbly. They beat England hands down, playing some magnificent cricket and charming people off the field. Typically, Wasim will trust his players to draw from their deep well of talent in the World Cup.

He does not want to scare the younger batsmen with tales of how the ball moves about in England, and he knows that his bowlers can match those of any side. They have also, and not before time, begun to use modern fielding techniques.

``I am looking for three more years,'' said Wasim, sounding like a politician on the stump. He has taken more wickets than anybody in one-day cricket, 371, and another 364 in Tests. ``I used to say I would like to beat Kapil Dev's Test record [434] but now I am worried about having to go past Courtney [Walsh, on 423]! But my ambition is to win another World Cup. Before I finish I would like to do it one more time.''

If they do it this time, they can put up a statue to him in Lahore, if only for others to pull it down. Mushtaq Mohammed wandered round the dressing room at Derby, pretending to be the coach, but he didn't fool anybody. This is Wasim's team in all but name and he intends to leave his mark.

English crowds will not see him again, so there is no excuse for failing to say goodbye to this great cricketer. There are other fine players in this tournament but none has a more compelling reason for leaving it in glory. There is a glint in the warrior's eye, and it says: I'm not here for fun.