A Traitorous Confession

I don’t like the English cricket team. There, I said it. I feel no attachment whatsoever to this particular collection of blue-clad gym-botherers. It may be traitors’ talk, but I am entirely indifferent to the outcome of Friday’s semi-final. The match itself, I am looking forward to. The result is irrelevant.

So why don’t I care?

First of all, I’m not a natural patriot. The merest sight of a St George Cross and I begin to mumble angrily into my cocoa and feel an urge to whistle the Marseillaise or set fire to some Morris dancers’ handkerchiefs.

Ah, you might say, once a traitor, always a traitor. You may be right.

But ‘twas not always thus. Even though I grew up watching an inept bunch of no-hopers struggle desperately every summer, I took it for granted that I wanted England to win and I took these losers to my heart. If I were asked to name my cricket hero, I would first lecture the interrogator on the inanity of the question, and then mutter something about Mike Atherton.

My levels of Englishness peaked in 2005. Watching re-runs of that Ashes series, I realise that at the time I must have been blind to the drunken morons on the terraces; oblivious to the mindless, draining partiality of that summer’s prevailing mood and to the manner in which the subtle complexities of the great game were overwhelmed by a torrent of red and white jingoism. Australia were the cruel tormentors, the heartless tyrants and we were finally overthrowing them. It was a victory for justice and freedom. Cry God for Freddie, England and St George!

But something happened during the post-Ashes hangover. You know what it’s like. A big night out, you wake up feeling depressed and you can’t remember where you left your shoes. Well for me, it was my patriotism. I know I had it at the Oval. I’m sure it was around during the Trafalgar Square parade. But it had gone. And I haven’t found it yet. This summer, as England were being embarrassed by the Netherlands at Lord’s, I joined the worldwide club of neutrals and cheered the men in orange.

How did this happen? To be honest, I don’t know. There has been any number of disillusionments, disenchantments and irritations in recent years. There was Alastair Cook’s biography; Monty Panesar’s biography; the continued selection of Steve Harmison; the Stanford debacle; the canonisation of Andrew Flintoff; the total lack of anything approaching a global perspective on the part of the English press.

Or perhaps I just became bored of looking at the same old surly, unshaven, unsmiling bunch of really quite ordinary sportsmen. I grew tired of hearing how they were all very, very talented – despite all the evidence to the contrary. I began instead to take an interest in other, frankly more exciting teams. I began to enjoy the game for its own sake, without being tensed up in a clench of patriotic desperation.

And that is what I shall be doing on Friday, with a gin and tonic to hand. You are welcome to join me at Hughes Towers, providing you leave your flags in the foyer and don’t spill your lager on the Axminster.