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My impression may be coloured by the fact that I have just come back from India where the 's coverage has at times overshadowed .

It also does not help that , has taken a blow this season with a Lord's Test match not Thursday and carrying such little conviction for the visitors, that the West Indies captain .

Not surprising then that tickets for the Test have not gone well and, even allowing for , this is a worrying augury for the season.

The reasons may be well known. There is . Add to that the fact that the West Indies are the third choice team for the early summer series, after Zimbabwe and had fallen by the wayside.

But even allowing for all that my worry is that English cricket will fail to construct the sort of narrative a sport needs and English cricket craves.

I realise the .

The narrative which saw the visiting Australians take in the FA Cup final at the end of April, then drive down to Worcester for the a match starting on 1 May and hammer their way around the country before the Tests began.

Now never ceases and nor does its appeal. Its ability to combine with the hypnotic allure of , so compelling that in the unlikely event of the established Dickensian characters such as and Arsene Wenger ever fading a new one is always ready to emerge. Guus Hiddink seems to have been barely five minutes in this country yet ..

has nothing remotely like that to offer. To be fair cricket is not the only sport in search of a narrative. is particularly aware of this but to its credit it has recognised the problem and is addressing it.

Yes, ideas are being considered to freshen cricket up. Lord's is bidding to stage , and is looking at having a Middlesex day-night county match later this summer. Starting at 1430 this could see players wearing pastel shades and with two new balls, one for each end. I have long been an advocate of a county match starting at 1430. Not only would it make much of the light we have in the summer but it would mean first-class cricket would be .

But welcome as such ideas are they remain isolated. Our cricket administrators remain averse to change and they give the impression that they are hoping something will turn up.

It worked in 2005, a season that began slowly but developed into and a memorable England victory. But as Mr Micawber found out you cannot just wait and hope. You need to venture out and seize the moment.

If English cricket fails to do that in this of all summers then it will have no-one to blame but itself.