World Cup cricket cards marked

What could be better? I'll tell you. The daffodils are nodding their heads pubwards and the sun is casting a cheery beam over men, women and children. You're sitting in London's red and tranquil labyrinth and, just to cap it off, England will kick off its efforts to win the cricket World Cup in a few minutes.

So why are you looking so glum? Ah, I see, that git Roger has nipped off to play golf leaving you to do the PowerPoint slides for the big meeting with Blenkinsop. And Blenkinsop has only gone and moved the meeting forward to Monday, 9am. ‘As per', you growl to yourself, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Like Robinson Crusoe or whoever it was, you take a piece of paper, draw a vertical line down the centre and mark the halves with plus and minus signs. On the left-hand 'plus' side you write: daffodils, sun, England, cricket. On the right side you scrawl: Roger bloody Grant and Reggie Blenkinsop, the self-righteous prat.

But hang on a second, isn't there a third way, as Tony Blair might say? Of course there is and it's called the internet, an invention that was designed exclusively with surreptitious cricket following in mind. Probably.

The question is, which service to tune into. Well, the good news is that there are only two outstanding options.

Sporting Life is an excellent all-round site but you need to choose between the Live Scorecard which is updated pretty close to real time and the Desktop Scorecard, which is flashy looking, has an excellent text commentary but isn't always in sync with the score card.

The other big hitter is CricInfo, the Mecca of cricket nerdery and a fund of knowledge on matters pertaining to leather and willow. The score card doesn't miss a hell of a lot.

Now that your card is marked, I'd better go. England have been put into bat by the Kiwis and we need a bright start. µ