Not all the anxieties surrounding English struggles in world cricket would be dispelled by a successful tour but the prospect of an Australian visit next summer will seem much less daunting, and the outcome of the rubber for the Ashes a little less predictable, if the relatively weak opposition which awaits can be convincingly overcome.

The emphasis on fitness and team spirit, encouraged by the recent training week in Portugal and underlined by the request to players not to allow wives and girlfriends to join them at any stage of their 14 weeks away, suggests a new level of hardness in the approach of David Lloyd, the coach, and his fellow Lancastrian, Mike Atherton.

It is for domestic reasons that Dominic Cork has decided not to go to Zimbabwe, which has robbed the captain of his best bowler but also brought the tyro, Chris Silverwood, a step closer to an early Test cap.

No one could have worked harder for the cause than Atherton, whose enthusiasm for an intensely demanding job would not survive another unproductive tour. England have not won a rubber overseas since the last tour to New Zealand five years ago and the corrosive effect of continued disappointment has been evident in the constant shifting of personnel as successive selection committees have striven to find a formula for consistency.

If this winter is to mark a turning point, as all who support England cricket most fervently hope it is, the point of turn, indeed of no return, is a lowly one. Only their two opponents this winter are now rated below them when all the facts have been fed, without frill or emotion, into the computer.

Using the same criteria which produce not a single Englishman in the top 10 of the Coopers and Lybrand batting and bowling lists, The Cricketer ratings place New Zealand in eighth position and Zimbabwe in ninth.

More than honourable draws will be expected of England in Zimbabwe, who have the zeal of an essentially amateur team, still pinching themselves at the joy of being promoted to the elite. Their various one-day successes against England in Australia mean that they will have no sense of inferiority, as nations usually do in their early years of Test status.

In David Houghton, 39, they have a veteran batsman of high class who would like nothing better than to end his first-class career with a win over England, especially as the TCCB were so reluctant to grant Zimbabwe Test status and have been so curmudgeonly about giving them a Test in England. Houghton's career began in 1978, but he is still fit and four Test hundreds plus an average close to 50 make him a player to respect if no longer, perhaps, to fear. Equal respect will surely be accorded the Flower brothers and Alistair Campbell.

Zimbabwe also possess two bowlers of genuine Test class in Paul Strang, the leg-spinner, and, if he has recovered, the strong and incisive Heath Streak, who was badly missed against Pakistan. This is surely good news for Atherton, Stewart, Hussain, Thorpe, Crawley, Knight and Russell, who, fitness permitting, are most likely to form the top seven throughout the winter and next summer.

Not that this batting order is pre-ordained. The early matches will determine whether a batsman has to be omitted, or whether Stewart should remain the wicketkeeper so that England can play three of their five seamers - Gough, Mullally, Caddick, Silverwood and Irani - plus their two spinners, Tufnell and Croft.

The hope is that Cork will return in the early new year, refreshed both physically and mentally. His best may be needed, because there are signs of a revival in New Zealand cricket.

Any temptation towards complacency ought also to be banished by a reminder that New Zealand's Under-19s proved superior to England last summer and indeed that England have never won a two-innings match at that level against New Zealand.

That strength at junior level reflects the fact that 60,000 under the age of 20 play cricket in a country with a population of only 3.5 million. The best of them are now spending eight months at the Lincoln Cricket Academy near Christchurch. How many Cricket Academy graduates are there in the England team leaving today?

The answer is one: Silverwood, one-time student at the Bradford Academy; this in the continued absence of any national version. The matter-of-fact 21-year-old Yorkshireman is the one unknown factor in the England bowling attack.

The jostling for places between himself, Mullally, Gough, Caddick and, in the new year, Cork too, should be interesting, especially if Irani makes his mark early. To a man the team will have half an eye on the Australian visit next season, and so will all of us who follow them.