Cricket: Women drivers show admirable technique: Ian Ridley watches England prepare for the Women's Cricket World Cup, starting tomorrow

THE FIRST thing to strike you about top-level women's football is how pleasing a passing game they seek to play; the initial impression of women's cricket is of how technically correct is the batting.

Both remind you of times in the men's games when pace and power were subsidiary to skill and talent, of a more, well, charmingly amateur time. With brute force and strength not available to them, the women have rather to rely on finesse.

That at least is the perceived view and much of it held true yesterday at the Crabble Ground in Dover where England's team to contest the World Cup - which they start tomorrow against Denmark and hope to finish on Sunday week with the final at Lord's - enjoyed a productive afternoon of batting practise against an England B team.

Against, it has to be said, some wayward bowling and butter-fingered fielding, Helen Plimmer and the prolific Janette Brittin compiled a stand of 174, with the opener making 120 and Brittin 94, out of a 60- over total of 287 for 6.

The talented all-rounder Jo Chamberlain - whisper it in women's circles, their Ian Botham - chipped in with 28 from 16 balls, exhibiting also the greater physical presence and professional attitude they have been cultivating.

You do try hard not to compare the women's game with the men's, and to tread on eggshells as you try to let it stand or fall on its own merits. But there are inevitably overlapping areas. They accept, for example, that they need the men's input in coaching - the former Yorkshire batsman Kevin Sharp is among them this year - and that they could actually do with less of the technique sometimes and more of the men's one-day welly.

They have also adopted the tracksuit vogue and after a scientific winter fitness programme expect to take a more athletic team than ever into the tournament. They have even been working with a sports psychologist.

Essex would be pleased with it all. 'Looking at top-level sports people, scientifically they have to be fit for the demands of modern games,' says the England coach, Ruth Prideaux.

They have, she adds, been working on visualisation, team cohesion, body language and goal-setting; in other words, believing in themselves and each other, looking confident and doing their best - a bit of Australian attitude to counter the tournament favourites. Watching their weight has also been part of it said Prideaux.

As lean as the players has been the state of women's cricket in England in recent years. The World Cup, for which there was a struggle to raise the pounds 90,000 costs, offers opportunity for fresh impetus.

'We are looking at top spot,' says Prideaux. 'We don't have the backing of the Australian or New Zealand teams but I believe we can match them.'

After the fuss dies down, Prideaux believes it will be time to develop the young schoolgirls coming through the Kwik cricket game, to coax more men's clubs to take women's sections under their wings as professional football clubs have done and for Lord's to increase its help for the national team.

In the meantime, though, they know the next fortnight is for seizing and the assets of their own game - not least that stylish batting - to be exploited. There are others, too. Said the match announcer, tongue in cheek, as England B set out on their forlorn run chase (they lost by 145 runs): 'Opening the innings is 24-year-old brunette . . .'

ENGLAND v ENGLAND B (Crabble Ground, Dover): England 287-6 (60 overs, H Plimmer 120, J Brittin 94; D Maylbury 2-48, M Moralee 2-46). England B 142-8 (60 overs, A Bainbridge 49, J Godman 45; C Hodges 3-31). England won by 145 runs.