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All the talk is of impending trouble at Tuesday's clash between India and Pakistan. In fact, apart from the inevitable pitch invasions, the crowds have rarely misbehaved so far, and the only unsavoury incidents have occurred after matches.

Peter Willey was crudely abused by a couple of Pakistani supporters leaving Derby for some lbw decisions in a previous match, and some irate Indians pelted the Zimbabwean balcony at Leicester with missiles after the Indians' narrow defeat. Otherwise most of the boisterousness has been stirred up by Sky cameramen pointing their lenses at sections of the crowd and inciting them to jump and down manically. Cameramen are the new cheerleaders. At Tuesday's match, live on Sky, it might be advisable for them to concentrate solely on the cricket.

India versus Pakistan is certainly something else, and the omens are not good if their last encounters here in the early 1990s are anything to go by. Both matches - at Crystal Palace and Uxbridge were abandoned because of crowd unrest. At least at Old Trafford the countries' two

great pacifiers - Imran Khan (commentating for the BBC) and Sachin Tendulkar - will be present. So, too, will a horde of specially recruited Asian stewards. Becoming a temporary steward has been one useful means of entry for the ticketless.

Adhering to their twin aims of topicality and ethnic minority appeal, Channel 4 will preview the India-Pakistan clash with A Bat and Ball War. Narrated by Sir Tim Rice, the programme is a behind-the-scenes documentary with unprecedented player access about last winter's bridge-building Test series between the sides.

It provides a fascinating profile of the fervour surrounding Test matches in the subcontinent, and also serves one other valuable purpose. It is transmitted so late on Monday night that those watching it will be too tired to cause trouble at Tuesday's game.

``He's reversed it into him.'' A popular observation from the commentators during the competition, which doesn't refer to Inzamam's running or Nasser Hussain's driving (he once wrote off Graham Gooch's new car). Reverse swing, that complex phenomenon that everyone talks about and no one understands, has played a big part in restricting scoring in the last 10 overs of World Cup innings (only two teams South Africa and India - average more than six runs per over at this stage).

Just as a quick recap, it is called ``reverse'' swing because in certain conditions a ball held for an outswinger (i.e., with the shine on the right, facing the leg-side) will tend veer in as it gets older.

It is still an unfamiliar skill for many cricketers, but it is not a new one. Imran Khan remembers Max Walker describing bowling out the West Indies in 1973 with reverse swing, and also seeing Dennis Lillee bending an old ball around unplayably at the MCG three years later.

``I observed his grip when I was batting,'' Imran said, ``and noticed the ball was swinging the opposite way round. I tried it later in the match and it worked for me, too.'' He converted figures of none for 122 in the first innings into ones of five for 122 in the second.

No wonder the Australians celebrated taking the wicket of Tendulkar for a duck so joyfully at the Oval. It was the first time that they had bowled against him since his extraordinary demolition act against them last year. In 13 innings he took 1,271 runs off the Aussies, including seven centuries, for an average of 115.54.

You can understand then why Steve Waugh, when asked at the time how Tendulkar compared with Don Bradman, said: ``Look, there's only one Bradman, and there'll never be anyone as good as him. But I think when Tendulkar's career is finished, he'll go down as the batsman who was second to Bradman.''

The other Indians excellently demonstrated their propensity to turn ones into twos and twos into threes against the Australians. Unfortunately this was in the field.

The FedEx speedster made its debut at the Oval, though the actual technology that measures the speed of quick bowlers' deliveries was used at Test grounds last season. The fastest ball sent down yesterday was a Javagal Srinath bouncer clocked at 93mph, 5mph faster than anything Glenn McGrath produced.

The purveyor of supposedly the fastest delivery on record cannot remember it. A ball from Jeff Thomson in 1977 was timed by some university students at 99.7mph, but he has no idea which one or in which match. ``It's a shame they weren't at Lord's in 1981 when I was bowling at Viv Richards [for Middlesex against Somerset],'' Tommo said. ``That was friggin' rapid.''

Many reasons have been ventured for England's lack of progress in the tournament, including dozy selection, dozy batting and dozy accountants. The real culprit, however, is Scrumpy Jack cider. One of the associate sponsors of this World Cup, they offered tickets through last Sunday's papers to England's Super Six games.

``We know they [England] have qualified,'' said the ad, ``and you can be there at all England's three crucial Super Six games.'' Clearly this put the mockers on England's pursuit of India's 232 on Sunday morning. And as two of the squad admitted afterwards: ``I suppose we did think we were more or less through.''