England are yet to play simultaneous cricket in New Zealand. In the first Test at Hamilton the batting and bowling were abject but the fielding was magnificent. Last week in Wellington the roles reversed; the fielding was dreadful, the batting and bowling were pretty good.

England made steady progress on the third morning, extending their first innings lead of 144 by a further 106 runs before lunch. Michael Vaughan, the England captain, was the only batsman to lose his wicket when, on 13, he edged a good ball from Kyle Mills through to Brendon McCullum, the Black Caps wicket-keeper.

In a tournament sprinkled with stellar talents from Juventus, Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid, Trinidad & Tobago stick out like a sore thumb for a squad drawn from clubs as disparate as Port Vale, Sydney FC, Los Angeles Galaxy and Falkirk. But on their World Cup debut against Sweden in Dortmund today, they may face a goalkeeper whose pedigree also combines the modest and the exotic.

In recent seasons, runners trained by Sir Mark Prescott have not tended to appear until long after the first swifts. While other trainers allowed their unexposed horses to race up the ratings with reckless haste, Prescott would bide his time at bull rings in the South of France before finally beginning to bait the handicapper with feints and flourishes of his own. This spring, however, it became imperative to follow a different schedule, thanks to the presence in his yard of Confidential Lady.

Five military coffins, bearing the latest British dead from Iraq, arrived home yesterday. At the same time, 105 people died during two days of carnage in Afghanistan ­ the next battleground for British forces.

Another milestone will be passed next week in Britain's slow transformation into a country that recycles its rubbish - the first prosecution of a householder for failing to recycle properly.