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Scyld Berry, in Sharjah, on how an ECB pay dispute is affecting England's progress

With one month to go before their opening match, England's World Cup build-up could hardly be in a worse state. Summer and its white heat have come early to the Gulf, making the sky not blue but ashen-faced - just like English cricket as it contemplates the hitherto unthinkable thought that their team will not make it through the qualifying round of the World Cup.

If England cannot beat India in the Sharjah tournament today, they will have lost nine of their last 10 one-day internationals, and will be knocked out to fly home demoralised. More than that, the team are still far from settled in every respect, from their make-up after the depth-plumbing defeat by a feeble Indian team on Friday to the festering contractual dispute with the ECB.

The Board had originally said England's players would be given their contracts to sign by mid-March, yet like every other deadline announced for this World Cup it has proved to be completely meaningless. The contracts did not arrive here until yesterday and the players probably will not be given them until Tuesday as they have two final games to concentrate on before then in which to end their run of failure.

Asked whether the contractual dispute was damaging the players' performance here, England's tour manager David Graveney said: ``I don't detect that in their cricket. In terms of the trip itself it is a distraction which hasn't made for a happy atmosphere.''

This whole business has been poorly handled by the ECB, and by the international team's director, Simon Pack, in particular. It is not simply the amount of money on offer to England's World Cup players, although the sums involved are hardly calculated to tempt youngsters to prefer cricket to football. It is more the lack of understanding of cricketers and insensitive man-management which have gone into the negotiations.

By the terms of the original ECB offer, the playing members of England's 15-man party would receive a sum total of £8,000 for the five qualifying matches, assuming they did not proceed to the Super Six stage; and the non-playing members would receive £3,750 for their five weeks of employment. Whether such a payment is insulting to the country's best one-day cricketers can be debated. What is indisputable is that the thinking behind such an offer is that of someone without any appreciation of the fact that cricket is a team game, in which a spirit of all-for-one and one-for-all should be created: rightly the players feel that they should all be paid the same.

If England were to win the World Cup, the players would receive just under £37,000 each from the ECB in fees and bonuses, not an extraordinary sum for winning the most prestigious tournament in the game over two months; and nobody at present, not even in the gambling-rife Gulf, would bet on them reaching that far. It is understood that the first-class counties will receive £30,000 in compensation from the ECB for each World Cup player required by England (their bold initial bid was for £50,000). Yet the players themselves will receive, in all probability, a sum substantially less than the compensation figure.

Graveney has indicated that the amount of money to be offered by the ECB in the contracts will be ``in essence'' the same, although that offensive inequality between playing and non-playing members of the party will be addressed.

Yet England's Test victory over South Africa last summer brought millions of pounds into the game as the TV contract with Channel Four and BSkyB was being negotiated; and only if England excel in the World Cup, from whatever motive, will their subsequent four-Test series against New Zealand be anything more than a damp and unremunerative squib.

After all, the years of master-servant relationship with the old TCCB, England's players were gratified to receive more consideration from the new-broom ECB under Lord MacLaurin. Now that initial warmth would appear to be rapidly cooling because of this dispute and other recent matters (one important member of the Team England staff has been told that if England beat New Zealand in three days this summer he will only be paid for three days - no incentive, that). England are not so talented that they can win without everyone pulling together.

It is widely appreciated this World Cup is not going to be the financial bonanza which had been confidently predicted, as only four out of eight official sponsors have been found, a shortfall in itself of some £8 million. But it would have been wise if Pack - a former Nato commander, without any previous track-record in cricket - had flown to Sharjah with the contracts to explain the position, as he was scheduled to do, instead of excusing himself on grounds of more urgent business. Cricketers do not like to be treated like foot-soldiers.

On the field, as well, England give the impression that three weeks rather than three years have gone into their World Cup planning. Their long losing sequence - they have won seven out of 25 internationals since they were last in Sharjah - would be bad enough for a settled side like South Africa. This team have never played together before and have no collective memory of winning from which to draw confidence.

The bowlers here have not passed the bat after the opening spells of Darren Gough and Alan Mullally; the only drift which Robert Croft has been getting has been out of the picture and probably the team; the fielding remains average, as the two best fielders, Nasser Hussain and Adam Hollioake, are not in the 11; and the batsmen below Andy Flintoff, the one bright spot, have never made runs in one-day internationals and do not look as if they will.

Above all, England must for once put together an opening partnership today if they are to beat India and have a chance of reaching the final. Nick Knight has missed straight balls as his hands are as far from his body as ever, and his fielding has not sparkled. Alec Stewart has made one 50 in 27 innings since the last Sharjah tournament: too little footwork and too much on his plate, especially after keeping wicket for 50 overs in 40-degree heat.

``We're not maximising the first 15 overs,'' the coach David Lloyd under-stated yesterday, before indicating that England's latest plan is to draft in Vince Wells at number two or three to help make the most of the fielding restrictions. Wells is a fine front-foot driver in county cricket but, to call on a 33-year-old who had never tasted international cricket before this year, smacks of a desperate quick-fix rather than foresightful planning.

Injured West Indies wicket-keeper Ridley Jacobs will miss the first one-day international against Australia, who are likely to rest Glenn McGrath, in St Vincent today.