The first day off all tour for the players was marked by brooding clouds and for one or two the pervading atmosphere of gloom and foreboding was appropriate to the announcement by David Graveney at Lord's of a provisional squad of 23 for the one-day matches against Australia and Sri Lanka in January and February.

There is no place, even in a squad which has to be whittled down to a maximum of 18 by early December, for six members of the team whose first and overriding consideration is the Ashes series which begins a week today. Those who will be most disappointed, perhaps, are Nasser Hussain, Mark Ramprakash and Dominic Cork, who are joined on the outside of this particular enterprise by Peter Such, Mark Butcher and Alex Tudor.

It was a delicate judgment for Graveney and his fellow selectors, Graham Gooch, Mike Gatting and Alec Stewart. Graveney said that the purpose of naming a party at this stage was to prepare those players not already in Australia for a trip which for them will begin with a flight to Brisbane on Boxing Day. But he seemed to leave the door open for anyone - Hussain, Ramprakash and Cork especially perhaps - who has an outstanding start to the Ashes series when he added: ``There will be several players who will be disappointed not to be included, but with the A team on tour at the same time and the Sharjah tournament and the World Cup on the horizon, we must stress that the door is not closed to any individual . . . we may take Ashes form and fitness into account when finalising our plans.''

There are notable omissions quite apart from those now in Cairns. They include Chris Adams (playing for the Australian Capital Territory team in Canberra), Alistair Brown and Graham Lloyd, all of whom have played as specialist limited-overs batsmen for England this year, and the potentially explosive Andrew Flintoff, who will be making another A tour instead.

Neil Fairbrother has earned his place again and so has John Crawley, whose one-day performances for Lancashire have taken a surprisingly long time to dawn on the selectors. He could be a deputy wicketkeeper if necessary but Warren Hegg is also included, perhaps until a fuller assessment can be made of the durability of Stewart's back. Graveney indicated that Stewart might be needed to open the batting with Nick Knight. Mike Atherton, whose back is even more suspect, is chosen, no doubt, with the same fitness provisio.

As always, the new faces are the most interesting although neither Mark Alleyne, 30, nor Vince Wells, 33, is in his first flush of youth. They are added to a group of medium-paced bowling all-rounders which is almost a squad in itself: Mark Ealham, Matthew Fleming, Adam and Ben Hollioake, Ian Austin and Dougie Brown. They cannot all play.

Meanwhile, the tour selectors gave a few indications of their own about the likely team for the first Test in Brisbane. Graham Thorpe's omission is, of course, merely to rest him, but Ben Hollioake's confirms that he will not play in either of the first two back-to-back Tests. Tudor will not play in Brisbane but might in Perth and Such did not apparently do enough in Adelaide for Robert Croft to be relegated yet. If the weather and the match situation permit, however, I expect Ramprakash to do a fair amount of bowling against Queensland in case he is required as the fifth bowler in support of four seamers next week.

ENGLAND SQUAD: -*A J Stewart (Surrey), M W Alleyne (Gloucs), M A Atherton, I D Austin (both Lancs), D R Brown (Warwicks), J P Crawley (Lancs), R D B Croft (Glamorgan), M A Ealham (Kent), N H Fairbrother (Lancs), M V Fleming (Kent), A R C Fraser (Middlesex), A F Giles (Warwicks), D Gough (Yorks), D W Headley (Kent), -W K Hegg (Lancs), G A Hick (Worcs), A J Hollioake (Surrey), B C Hollioake (Surrey), N V Knight (Warwicks), P J Martin (Lancs), A D Mullally (Leics), G P Thorpe (Surrey), V J Wells (Leics).