The Twitching of English Cricket

Apparently, we’re in crisis. Now, I have to confess that I started to watch England play cricket in the mid eighties so for me, the word crisis has rather lost its sting over the years. Indeed, to connoisseurs of spicy English cricket calamity, this latest pickle is rather tame. A captain who wasn’t very good has been replaced by a better one. Even Eyeore would struggle to work that one up into a crisis.

But the c-word just will not go away. Why? Because though your average Englishman will always prefer gossip to investigation, he doesn’t like to admit it. This gives editors a problem. They solve it in the same way governments do when they want to throw large numbers of the populace into jail: by invoking a state of emergency. Old man crisis is brought out of retirement and under his puritanical gaze, we are free to carry on indulging in the soap opera that is the England cricket team. Is Daisy friends with Freddie? Is KP talking to Harmy? It’s all jolly good fun.

Of course, should a chap be so uncouth as to suggest, after coughing politely, that the real problem we have is that the vast majority of players in the English game aren’t actually very good, he would be greeted with a stony silence. It would be the journalistic equivalent of telling a knock-knock joke at a funeral.

Another English trait is our habit of slandering, mocking and generally abusing our leaders, regardless of their merits. The mendacity or incompetence of anyone in power is a given; they represent inanimate effigies that we can safely lay into over our lattes and bacon sarnies. In itself this trait is harmless, the information age equivalent of the man employed to sit behind Caesar and remind him that he was mortal.

But we also have an unrealistically strong faith in the democratic system. Not happy about the state of English cricket? Don’t worry, there’s going to be an election. Get rid of tatty old Giles Clarke and get the new bloke in. Then things will be fine. Democracy of course, can be a blunt but powerful instrument, a savage hammer of justice falling heavily on the incumbent and tearing down the established structure.

Unfortunately, the hammer used in ECB elections is made of foam. The upcoming contest for the leadership of English cricket is about as significant as two ducks squabbling over a piece of bread. In the red corner is Giles Clarke, a successful businessman and passionate defender of county cricket. In the other red corner is Lord Marland, a passionate defender of county cricket and successful businessman. Which of them will prevail? A nation is on tenterhooks.

English cricket isn’t in a crisis. It’s in a coma. A one hundred and fifty year coma, to be precise; a deep and enduring state of unconsciousness in which we may occasionally bat an eyelid, but soon sink back into silent, uncomplaining numbness.

Our game is organised in a way that would warm the cockles of Al Capone’s heart. Huge sums of money are extorted from a profitable national team in order to prop up a loss-making domestic game that no-one watches and which serves no discernable purpose. Meanwhile, members of the public who have the audacity to want to watch their national team must either pay £100 a time for the privilege of squeezing into poky little stadiums like Lord’s or shell out £500 a year for a Sky subscription.

The eighteen first class counties run our game in a thoroughly English way, that is, ruthlessly, but out of sight, whilst being able to pretend that they have nothing to do with it. Think of the ECB as a large polished table, around which sit eighteen super villains, from Dr No to Darth Vader. From time to time they pick a new puppet to do their bidding. So who will it be this time? Clarke or Marland? Who cares.