大象传媒

Under the watchful eyes of physio Dean Conway and team doctor Mark Wotherspoon, Anderson bowled for about two overs in the middle at the Beausejour Stadium, gradually increasing his pace until his looked close to flat-out.

He took fielding practice, although he tried whenever possible to catch with his left hand. While his throwing wasn鈥檛 of the exocet style demonstrated by team-mate Paul Collingwood, it wasn鈥檛 too shabby.

Anderson wielded the bat a little, too, although that is unlikely to be needed unless England are so deep in trouble that it will make little difference.

The short practice session that England favour on the eve of a big game looked to be over, until word came to those standing on the boundary edge to take cover.

Kevin Pietersen had clearly decided he needed to practice clubbing balls into the top tier of the pavilion and he proceeded to do so with regularity.

Whether it was heading our way or not the difficulty in spotting the white ball against the brilliant blue sky saw observers ducking for cover any time a ball went airborn.

Perhaps KP had been reading this morning鈥檚 local newspaper, The Star, in which Caribbean great Sir Viv Richards outlines the details of his Six Sixes competition, run with the help of the tournament鈥檚 official whisky.

I bet you didn鈥檛 know the World Cup had an official whisky.

鈥淚f [Chris] Gayle or other candidates like Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Shahid Afridi hit six sixes in any over during this World Cup, Johnnie Walker will give a million US dollars to charity,鈥� says the Master Blaster.

Only Sir Garfield Sobers and Ravi Shastri have ever managed the feat in first-class cricket and no one has ever done it in a one-day international but Sir Viv reckons the short boundaries in this competition offer a great opportunity.

One of Richards鈥� candidates had no idea about the prize. When asked, Flintoff said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something I鈥檓 eyeing up to be honest.鈥�

His team mate Pietersen may have other ideas.