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Emerging Canterbury cricketers Michael Papps and Hayden Shaw have caught the eye of former England captain Mike Gatting.

In Christchurch as coach of the England under-19 side, Gatting nominated batsman Papps, pace bowler Shaw, and Wellington batsman James Franklin as the New Zealand players who had impressed him most during the youth ``tests''.

Their three-match series was drawn 1-1 when New Zealand recovered from a first-test loss to win the third encounter. The first of three one-day games will be played at Hagley Oval today.

Gatting paid tribute to the young New Zealanders for sharing the over-all honours. But he was not critical of his own players, stressing they were still developing their games.

Donning his other hat as a selector of England's full national team, Gatting expressed disappointment at results from the Ashes and WSC series in Australia.

``The nice thing was they actually showed a bit of spirit when they fought back to win a test in Melbourne.

``But the frustrating thing is I know they can do better than that as they proved by beating South Africa, a very good test match nation. We also won that test in Australia but at the end of the day there is no consistency and the series is lost,'' he said.

England's next home test opponent is New Zealand in July and August, after the World Cup tournament. Gatting predicts an ``interesting'' contest, in which ``our boys will have to play very well''.

Naturally, he does not subscribe to the widely touted theory that Australia and South Africa are in a division above the other World Cup contenders.

``Certainly, Australia and South Africa should go through to the finals. But I believe a lot of other sides could, on their day, find themselves in the final four. It comes down to one game then and they could beat the favourites,'' said Gatting.

While in this country Gatting has been impressed by the high performance centre at Lincoln and suggested England could follow New Zealand's lead.

``As far as New Zealand is concerned (the academy) is a huge step forward,'' he said.