Only 10 days before the First Test begins in Nagpur no contracts have been signed or rights awarded, and the prospect is growing of silence on the airwaves for the first time in generations. And yesterday he got a head start on his England team-mate and rival, speeding to the 100m title in the Victorian State Championships in the converted cricket shrine that was used for the 1956 Olympics.. It is difficult to imagine now, but when the vaulting ambition of Yelena Isinbayeva first took her up into hitherto uncharted airspace the athletics world barely noticed. The BBC television cameras had already been switched off at the end of their Sunday transmission, and only a handful of souls remained in Gateshead International Stadium when the young woman from Volgograd soared over 4.82m

That was at the Norwich Union Classic in July 2003. Two years and seven months on, Isinbayeva, with her beaming smile, and upward mobility, has become the star attraction at whatever meetingshe graces. There was more chance of the TV cameras following her out of the track and into the toilets at the National Indoor Arena yesterday than there was of the lensmen missing any vault she made in the Norwich Union Grand Prix – just in case she might attempt a world record on the way..

But if I go the distance, I’ll be criticised for that.”But if I see the other guy’s chin, I’m gonna hit it before he hits me.” Jackson Williams, a 24-year-old from Norwich, is the other guy, though one hopes not just a fall guy. He is certainly a step up from the Belorussian battered in 75 seconds by Amir last month, with 12 wins in 15 bouts.Williams lacks a troubling punch but originally learned his craft from Brendan Ingle, the trainer who honed the defensive skills of Naseem Hamed and Johnny Nelson. Williams is a trainee sports science teacher who runs ultra-marathons He must hope his boxing boots are made for running, too.. By the time Jason Gardener got to his marks in the National Indoor Arena yesterday, Mark Lewis-Francis had already crossed the finish line in the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Like Gardener, the so-called “Bath Bullet”, Lewis-Francis, the one-time Billy Whizz kid from the West Midlands, is aiming to be on the medal rostrum when the 100m men of the Commonwealth go for gold, silver and bronze in the MCG next month. The Bedford brawler is not someone to slug it out toe to toe with. Williams has to box clever, be as bold as he was against Tyson and as demonstrably dominant as he was against Harrison. That way he can at least win on points.Amir Khan, who makes his sixth professional appearance, is already having to weather more punches outside the ring than inside, but he deals as ruthlessly with critics of his opponents as he has the fighters “I can’t win,” he says “If I knock him out in a round, he will be no good. But the scars healed and Williams’s humbling of Harrison leaves him still harbouring ambitions to collect a world title.

Yet he will be back to square one if he loses to a fighter who, for all the breathless assaults of 18 unbeaten contests, is still a 38-year-old novice.Williams will know that Skelton, in spite of his technical limitations, will be braver and busier than Harrison. Yet he admitted he did not prepare as professionally as he should have done for the former Olympic champion; similar laxity would prove foolhardy against a man who, unlike the hesitant Harrison, will not take a backwards step.The fight could be a thriller or a stinker, depending on how effectively Williams counters Skelton’s unskilled labours. He is all heart, hustle and muscle, while Williams, with an orthodox pedigree stretching back via championship level to the amateurs, has the skill, the punch and above all the experience to win. All he needs to do is put it all together on the night.But with Williams nothing is ever that simple.