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ANNEKA RICE, whose role was supposedly to persuade women of the virtues of cricket, brought a refreshing new slant to public relations yesterday when she condemned the sport as ``worse than fishing''.

The television personality was speaking at Lord's, where she suggested the only good thing about the one-day game was that it ``finished in time for a gin and tonic and Blind Date''.

She is fronting a campaign for Outspan, the orange people, who are spending around £1 million sponsoring the World Cup, which starts in May. However, she believes cricket has a long way to go before women will be tempted through the turnstiles.

``It's a very dodgy sport to watch,'' she said. ``Frankly, the sport needs a bit of help.''

Outspan are planning a national survey to see how many women are interested in cricket - ``which should take about five minutes,'' said Rice - and are launching a free magazine explaining the basics of the game. Bodyline features a bare-chested hunk on the front cover with what can only be a couple of Outspans down his trousers.

While Terry Blake, the World Cup tournament director, looked startled at Rice's unexpected assault and Nasser Hussain, the England batsman, accepted it as ``constructive criticism'', Lorraine Kirby, the marketing manager of Outspan, put on a brave face.

``It's a light-hearted, cheeky campaign,'' she said. ``We want to make the terminology less daunting and help women understand the difference between a full toss and a googly. However, we don't want to be patronising.'' Quite.

Rice saw it more as a vehicle to persuade those who shop in supermarkets - who are, of course, mainly women - to buy more oranges. ``It's clearly aimed at women who buy fruit,'' she said.