ON A drizzly Sunday morning on a muddy school playing field near Walsall, pairs of tough-looking selectors patrol the pitches, noting every dropped catch or neat bit of fielding. Stephanie Burgess, 13, winds up for a thunderous hit, turning her slight shoulders, lifting the shiny metal bat and whacking the leather ball explosively beyond the despairing fingers of a lunging outfielder.

She sprints head down, football boots scudding along the slippery track past the first two posts but, just when she looks home and dry, the fielder scoops up the ball and skims it fast and flat 80 yards, straight into the hands of fourth post. Welcome to the glamour of international rounders.

The name may evoke childhood memories of knockabout beach games and school matches for those too slow and uncoordinated for tennis or athletics, but these days rounders, the forerunner of baseball, is taking itself very seriously, indeed. The game began in Tudor times and is mentioned in Northanger Abbey as a light-hearted pastime, but the teenagers charging grimly between the posts at the national trials appear the antithesis of Jane Austen’s genteel young ladies.

Over two Sundays, the selectors must whittle each age group down from around 120 hopefuls to two teams of 12, plus a handful of reserves. The reward? Hard-fought home internationals next summer from under-13 to senior level and, for the lucky few, trips to Canada or Fiji, although all expenses are paid by the players’ families.

This could all be about to change. With six million youngsters playing in schools, almost 5,000 registered adults competing in leagues, several of them mixed, plus a string of international fixtures, the game is expanding fast, particularly in the North and the Midlands. The National Rounders Association, until now receiving only £32,000 to run an office, with one full-time and two part-time national development officers, but relying mostly on unpaid volunteers, has applied for a £550,000 grant from Sport England. This could revolutionise the game if successful, funding regional organisers and teams to feed through players to the national side and helping to raise its profile, attracting more media coverage and sponsorship.

It is no coincidence that rounders was recently featured on Fat Nation on television. It is fun, cheap, easy to learn and the perfect sport for hard-up couch potatoes.

“With all the concern about obesity in kids, we’re the ideal sport for the Government to invest in,” Heather Hawes, the England team manager, said. “Anyone can play.”

Hawes’s daughter, Helen, 22, and Laura Peebles, 21, her England team-mate, are the David Beckhams of women’s rounders — each is a striking blonde boasting a massive hit and a throwing arm many county cricketers would envy. Unlike Beckham, however, each also coaches a junior England side and pays more than £1,000 a year for the privilege of representing her country.

“Maybe we need a couple of glamorous rounders superstars to get us on the map,” Hawes, scribbling down the bib numbers of the under-14s who have caught her eye, said.

“Hit the ball hard and low, so you don’t get caught, and aim for the gaps,” Hawes said. After two hard hours of practice games, the teenagers trooped off looking jittery and the selectors compared notes.

“Shall we tell them who’s in before they leave?” one asked.

“No,” Hawes said. “It would be awful for the ones who don’t make it to be told in front of the others. I’ll phone the ones who aren’t in. It’s an awful job, but at least they’ll have their parents there to pick up the pieces.”