ALL the elements for a fairytale are in place: the man from the East with the green eyes, the small Californian guru working out of a bunker on the edge of Iffley Road athletics track and the barrel-chested gentle giant of a bowling coach. The three masters stand in front of their young apprentices.

Six weeks ago, 473 hopefuls aged 15 to 24 (mostly; the odd ageing rocker turned up) converged on Lord’s for Cricket Idol, the search for bowlers, organised by Neil Burns, the chief executive of London County Cricket Club.

They were allowed to bowl 12 balls only and 31 were invited to the University Parks in Oxford a week later for outdoor testing. The 16 who made it through — 12 fast bowlers and four spinners — arrived in Oxford on Monday ready to start at 10am. They had come at their own cost from all over the country and were joined by one keen fellow who had flown in from New .

They were all there, but so was cricket’s oldest enemy. It was raining. The covers were on. Burns stood in the middle and, as if by magic, blue skies arrived. “Get your pads on, Matt,” he said.

Most of the boys know little of Burns, the former Essex, Somerset and Leicestershire wicketkeeper, but he leaves a lasting impression. A young Pakistani bowler arrived at Teddington, my club, this season. He revealed that he was at the Lord’s trial. “Did you meet Neil Burns?” I asked. He shrugged. “There was a man with green eyes,” he said mournfully. “I have not heard from him.”

Burns, 39, comes across as a mixture of many things; part guru, part management consultant, part salesman. He is selling a dream. He is an avalanche of goodwill, energy and belief. He says it may take three years before the crops begin to ripen into the best in the country.

In a world of depressing public-relations stunts and photo opportunities, this seems to be something genuine. Burns is busy fundraising and has called in favours, notably from John Roycroft, who is the head of sport at Oxford University.

Only 7 per cent of the nation’s children attend independent schools, yet 35 per cent of professional cricketers in England are educated in the private sector. Anyone who has been through the county system — and I spent eight years in the Middlesex colts — knows what a closed shop it can be.

Burns is trying to tap into the hunger for the game that exists outside the system. It is no surprise that half the final 16 are of Asian background. The first hint that it was going to be an interesting morning was a pitch that had more in common with Sabina Park than the Oxford Parks. The second hint was the ball from a left-armer that flew over my head. Ian Pont, the Essex bowling coach, had a speed gun set up and recorded it at more than 80mph.

But the most exciting moment was the sound of the ball fizzing as it left the hand of a 17-year-old off spinner, Mohit Mehta, who has developed a “doosra” with his father in the living-room of his home in Hayes, Middlesex. He was one of the four whom Burns invited to bowl in the nets against England and Bangladesh on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Lord ’s Test last week.

Enter Dr Ken West, a “performance scientist” based in Oxford, with a beguiling Californian drawl. His role is to explain the mechanics of the bowling action and ways of getting better performance out of the body. The four from Lord’s had to explain West’s “four experiments” to the rest. One is extending the delivery arm as high as possible, another is rotating the right hip through the left knee in delivery, a third is keeping the chest ahead of the ball on release.

But West’s research is particularly important with regard to the idea of being “tense and relaxed”. West says that if you tense the chest and side muscles in the run-up, it naturally triggers the muscles across your back to flatten the shoulder blade in delivery and relax the bowling arm.

Embracing new ideas is a core part of Burns’s philosophy. He has little time for coaches and players — the “sunglasses and logos” brigade — who are frightened of change. The boys’ body fat had already been tested with calipers and then it was down to Iffley Road for the fitness tests. Few excelled.

All 16 have been invited back to the next camp, which will be held in Oxford on Sunday, June 26, but not definitely to the ten camps after that. It is on their development in the intervening 27 days that they will be judged.

“It’s very straightforward,” Burns says, holding you with those sympathetic but steely eyes. “If people haven’t shown the necessary commitment, they are just going to be cut away. The idea is to cut each month so that it becomes a scrap to stay alive.”