Basketball; Memeth's mammoth task to lift England

The England coach, Laszlo Memeth, will have to abandon his nonchalant style this weekend to raise the players for tomorrow's international in Riga, Latvia, the first of 10 dates in the semi-final round of the European Championship.

Memeth has lost the leading player from last May's qualification round and is likely to lose the next-best player as well. Spencer Dunkley, the 6ft 10in centre who has spent the past three seasons playing on the continent, has remained in Spain for treatment to a serious knee injury from his club, Badalona.

Steve Bucknall, despite scoring 50 points this week for London Towers in domestic and European club competition, has succumbed to a hand injury and will not travel today.

Add to this pair the four other players who had arduous and unrewarding trips to Europe this week and it is hard to see England gaining much from their travels. Bucknall's London team-mates, Andy Gardiner and Neville Austin, endured the 97-70 defeat in Turkey which dumped London out of the Korac Cup, while Roger Huggins and Jason Crump, who is also out of the England trip, came close to an astonishing victory with Sheffield before their 78-75 defeat at Real Madrid.

Memeth, a Hungarian who has travelled most of European basketball's backwaters, is also wary of his players' inability to adjust quickly to life on the road. "Every time we leave the country the first game we play is terrible. Then comes the wake-up call and we start to play decent basketball."

Last week in Istanbul England beat Turkey in overtime after losing by 29 points against the same opponents the previous evening.

England squad, Sporting Digest, page 27