CANTERBURY - If England's inhospitable month of May continues South Africa, training up at Northampton for their second World Cup match today, might be wondering if they are not playing Sri Lanka in Port Elizabeth or some other miserable damp and cold spot south the Overberg.

Then again perhaps the weather is a typically British underhand ploy designed put off the other sides allowing them to win the trophy. What with numbing fingers and frozen toes, you stumble around south and east England following other the teams in Group A to get a ``feel'' of the conditions as well as ``good look'' at the opposition.

Watching England play two matches in a row in conditions which can only be described as arctic, although the locals call them ``bracing and ideal'', is not being done for the enjoyment of watching England play Kenya at Kent's picturesque St Lawrence ground yesterday.

Then that misty stuff they call drizzle, which had been falling for about 40 minutes grew heavy enough to force a halt after 20 overs. And no doubt umpires K T Francis and Rudi Koetzern were quiet happy to get off as well. And this after play did not start until after noon because of early rain and a wet outfield.

In the end, despite the icy conditions Nasser Hussain and Graeme Hick scored impressive half centuries and provided enough batting entertainment on a totally gloomy afternoon to steer England to a comfortable nine wickets victory.

They added 159 for the second wicket against a Kenya bowling attack handicapped by a wet ball with Hussain scoring 88 and Hick reaching his second half century in succession. Not that Kenya were been a pushover for England; they were well worth every run of their score of 203 after being invited to bat first. And we had a good look at Steve Tikolo showing why he is a world class act. He batted with sensible, if attacking flair and a touch of improvisation.

He drove Darren Gough stylishly and Mark Ealham also felt the broad blade of his athletic willow during an innings of 71 of 107 balls with eight fours. There were a couple of square and cover drives off Gough and Ian Austin.

But their total of 203, however, was not going to be enough to put their hosts under pressure. Just one shy of the Sri Lanka total at Lord's last Friday, it did show that the Kenyans are becoming an emerging force at limited-overs level.

There was also some beef at the bottom end of the innings where Thomas Odoyo slapped 34 off 32 balls, which included a six off Alan Mullally who did not look the same bowler yesterday. England's batting, however, had just too much class for Kenya while England captain Alec Stewart would do well to examine the theory of putting the opposition into bat when they play South Africa at The Oval on Saturday

With so much rain about we had a delayed start to the game and batting conditions were more ideal than those for bowling because of the wet outfield making the ball greasy. South Africa meet Kenya, their second African Group A rivals next week in Amstelveen, Amsterdam. And on the evidence of what we saw yesterday neither England nor Kenya should bother the tournament favourites.

As temperatures, promised by the met office to be 17C, plunged to below 10C, the advisability of holding the tournament this time of year should be seriously questioned although at the start most spectators seemed to find the weather ideally ``summery''. Many were wearing jackets and pullovers while there were those with sleeves rolled up.

As a weak sun filtered through, we also had tongue in cheek suggestions of South African ``bias'' with Port Elizabeth umpire Rudi Koetzern not giving a decision when there was an almighty appeal for a catch in the first overs of the Kenya innings.