At the same time those who have flocked to Edgbaston this season longing for a second coming are beginning to wear fixed expressions of disappointment; they have become agnostics and atheism is just around the corner.

This season he has started with championship scores of nought, 13, 38 and 57. His one-day scores have not been totally anticlimactic: eight, 13, 101, 49, 30 and 49 in yesterday's crucial Benson and Hedges Cup tie against Nottinghamshire as Warwickshire scored 228 for nine.

Yet not once this season has Lara, 29, batted at his best and yesterday we were presented with a flurry of impatient strokes. When leg spinner Paul Strang came on to bowl the 24th over Lara immediately pulled him over the distant midwicket boundary for six. But he perished to the next delivery, caught behind making room to work the ball on the off side.

Warwickshire batted first and lost Neil Smith, well caught by Strang in the gulley, in the second over. Nick Knight was lbw to Kevin Evans for 10, but Lara and David Hemp (50) then added 73 for the third wicket in 14 overs. It should have been the platform for a heavier total but of the later batsmen only Trevor Penney got runs.

None of this seemed to matter when Nottinghamshire batted. Graeme Welch took wickets in his first two overs and after 23 overs Nottinghamshire were struggling to make a match of it at 77 for five.