Cricket: The long hard struggle for money and recognition: Rob Steen on the odds against which the England women's team has fought to reach today's World Cup final

WHENEVER the England Women's squad assemble for a coaching session, Ruth Prideaux's living room can be counted upon to be crammed with sleeping bags by midnight. World Cup glory may beckon, but cost-cutting remains the bottom line.

Finances apart, however, the dearth of opportunities at schools level, such a regular lament among the menfolk, is perceived as the main barrier to a consistently successful national side. Prideaux, the England coach, remembers a time when cricket formed an integral part of the curriculum. 'I started playing at Gravesend Grammar when I was 12,' she recalls, 'and there were plenty of other schools sides to pit your wits against - Beckenham, Bromley, Waltham Hall.' Jo Chamberlain, by contrast, is the only member of the World Cup party to benefit from a similar springboard. The background of the England vice-captain, Gill Smith, who wrecked the Australian middle-order with her left-arm seam to set up a famous victory at Guildford last Monday, provides a typical example of the path trodden by the vast majority of the squad.

'I spent my early teens in Yorkshire in a house by the sea,' she recalls, 'and I was forever playing with my two older brothers and father on the beach. The brother of one of my friends played for the village team and one day we went to watch him. During the tea break we were messing around in the outfield when a tea lady came over, told us she played for a women's side and asked me if I fancied a game. Pretty soon I was turning out for Yorkshire Juniors, and by 18 I'd made it into the senior side.'

Smith has since moved home and now works as an office manager, captaining Berkhamstead Vagabonds and Middlesex at weekends. She can expect to make a dozen county appearances a season, mostly in the 12-team area championships. She is far from satisfied, though, with the present format. 'All the games are one-day affairs unless Australia, say, are touring, in which case you might get the odd two- or three-day game. They recently started playing evening cricket in Yorkshire. But is that good practice for Test cricket?'

The expense is another deterrent. 'I reckon I have spent pounds 4,500 to pounds 5,000 of my own money in seven years of playing for England,' Smith says, 'so it's a bit galling to read about the men fretting over their shirt sponsors, especially when we get a daily pounds 10 meal allowance and often have to hire our own cars. For this tournament I've taken half the time off on special leave, half on annual leave, but some players struggle. If your employer doesn't think much of women playing cricket you've had it.'

The days are long gone, unfortunately, when St Ivel would simplify the organisational and administrative logistics by funding an Australian tour. Commercial awareness does appear to be lacking, as the inability to attract a World Cup sponsor infers. The decision, a mere 10 days before the tournament opened, to approach Rachael Heyhoe-Flint to do a spot of PR left no room for doubt. In the interests of presenting a more businesslike image, mind, Audrey Collins, the kindly, long- serving president of the Women's Cricket Association - a perfect example of what the former England player Sarah Potter has referred to as the 'blue-rinse brigade' running the game - was asked to desist from her customary practice of raising money by selling chocolate bars to spectators.

All the same, most of the employers concerned have been exceedingly generous, although Debbie Stock, the reserve off-spinner who is likely to drink in today's occasion from the sidelines, chose to accept an offer of early retirement from her job as a photographic technician in order to ensure that she could take her place in the squad.

Stock, who recently turned 33, was something of a late starter, at least partly through ignorance. 'When I was 14 the Letcombe Regis men's team were short one day so I filled in for them. One day they were really short so I was drafted in and scored the win

ning runs; but I was 23 before I knew that women's cricket even existed.'

The past fortnight has shown that the game in England is very much alive and well, albeit far less prosperous than it is in India and Australasia, where public, corporate and television interest is considerable. 'Hopefully,' says Gill Smith, 'this competition will get the novelty element out of the way.

'People have been amazed at the standard and I've lost count of the number of girls who have come up to me to ask how they get started. I usually tell them that it's often down to whether or not the PE teacher likes cricket. Now we need to bring in some younger administrators and start pushing the game instead of devaluing it. This is not a Mickey Mouse game.'