WORCESTERSHIRE will be cursing Duncan Fletcher's request that James Anderson be given a game in the County Championship.

He was the reason for Lancashire's first innings superiority at Old Trafford. And so the battle rages on over how much cricket is good for you.

Old timers practised their skills in the middle; the current vogue is for training elsewhere, be that nets, gym or video. Bodies are honed, skills dissected and the mind prepared. A professional game demands a business-like approach with all margins squeezed to produce that crucial extra something.

I wonder, though, whether we lose track in all this of the human element, the unpredictable, which distinguishes the actual game of cricket.

The truth to me seems to lie in getting the balance right between practice and hunger, having the eye in and the desire strong.

I do not think this balance would be well served, however, by reducing the number of games played still further, as has been suggested by the ECB's domestic review.

I do admit, though, that it is difficult to ensure the desired quality of cricket across a competition embracing 18 counties and lacking its best domestic players.

So we turn to the overseas players to supply the glamour and quality to underpin our first class game. Meanwhile, vital finance flows out of the game as the hired hands come and go.

The Aussies have departed for Zimbabwe whilst various Pakistanis have arrived chastened by their defeat at the hands of India in what was nevertheless a wonderfully welcome example of all that is best in sport.

What else might that outflowing money be spent on - quality coaches to look after junior county sides in their crucial formative years?

Gloucestershire visit New Road this week with their first pair of Pakistani overseas players since Zaheer Abbas and Sadiq Mohammed were toying with another generation of English bowlers.

Shoaib Malik was instrumental, as an off-spinning all-rounder, in getting Gloucestershire to last year's final of the C&G. Shabbir Ahmed is more of an unknown quantity as an opening bowler, and a strong character if his refusal to bowl through wet run ups at Bristol last week is anything to go by.

Jon Lewis bowled from the same end untroubled apparently. He would be the next 'Headingley' bowler should England require one. He has no pretensions to pace, but is a fine practitioner of swing and seam with the necessary height to augment his skill.

Chris Taylor has the task of getting the best out of his bowlers as Gloucestershire's young, new four day captain.

While captaincy elsewhere is in the hands of seasoned pro's or overseas stars, Taylor joins Jon Batty and Luke Sutton as the competition's tyros.

If Batty struggles at Surrey with a few other would-be dominant males, Taylor has erred so far only in his over-enthusiasm to have a game with Kent in the first round of matches

Alex Gidman is the visitor's rising star whose winter A tour was curtailed by injury. Kadeer Ali was a fellow tourist and now finds himself, along with Stephen Moore, needing to establish himself before Vikram Solanki's return to a batting order with only five specialists.

There are plenty of hard-hitting all-rounders and, for all his 39 years, I'd still like to see Steve Rhodes splitting the all-rounders to offer balanced support.

And then it's Durham in the NCL and Shoaib Akhtar whose arrival presents a strong case in defence of the overseas player in our game.

I guess we should be grateful that Steve Harmison is otherwise engaged. Mind you, he's pretty exciting to watch too!