Football’s got a nerve: the Premiership resumes business next week and is already blaringly full of itself, its conceited luminaries strutting about as if England’s abject World Cup show was nothing to do with them. Sanest way to continue enjoying the summer is to ignore anything that concerns football till the clocks go back in October, which is about the same time as the England cricket team set off for Australia in defence of the Ashes. Beset with injuries, at least the cricketers have knuckled down to turn out a new team by introducing some warmingly bright sparks. In the absence of crocked captain, Vaughan, for instance, for much of the summer it has been heartening to admire the adult composure at the crease of the callow, schoolboy-fresh Cook; and instead of the earnestly predictable straight lines of veteran leftie spin bowler Giles, it has been an overwhelming pleasure to watch the precocious Panesar at work. The selectors deserve credit for encouraging the arts and devious crafts of the young Sikh against the inclinations of the inscrutable safety-first coach, Fletcher, and for giving a chance to the Devon-born Trent Bridge wicket-keeper, Read, over the coach’s favourite, Jones of Kent (the only change on purely cricketing grounds since the heady Ashes victory 11 months ago).
The English have traditionally prided themselves at producing glovemen of grandeur at both football and cricket, but while the goalkeeping line (Swift, Williams, Banks, Shilton) seems to have dried up completely, the dynasty behind the stumps is as healthy as ever; and while Jones and Read vie for the top job, they are both only too aware of an ambitious handful jostling to audition downstage — Foster of Essex, Powell of Glamorgan, and Worcester’s Davies, to name but three.
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