Fun runs

Something wonderful is happening in English cricket. The Ashes are upon us and, at last, the England team seem determined to play the right way. The recent series against New Zealand was a revelation. The Kiwis’ have-a-go approach rubbed off and, for the first time in too long, England played as if cricket was more than a job. It could be fun too. Remember fun?

We have seen it before. In 1981, at Headingley, England were revived by the rustic virtues of what their captain Mike Brearley called ‘blacksmith cricket’. See ball, hit ball. Bowl as fast as you can. Keep it simple. Trust yourself.

For a long time England have approached cricket as though it was not a game but a military campaign. They talked of bowling ‘dry’ in ‘the right areas’, of applying ‘scoreboard pressure’. When the management praised the ‘brand of cricket’ the team played, you felt this was yet more evidence of a sport, and a hierarchy, that recognised the price of everything and the value of precious little. Cricket should be a matter of style, not branding, statistics or game theory.

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Julie Burchill

Will I ever pee again?

The earnestness was supposed to demonstrate that England were the professionals’ professionals. Nothing would be left to chance. Everything could be planned, controlled, managed. Plug the right data into the right algorithm, and success would follow.

While England were winning, it was widely assumed that this meticulous preparation explained their success. Then, maintaining the same attention to detail, they started to lose. It became obvious, as it should have been all along, that much of their ‘professionalism’ was weapons-grade hokum: management furthering the interests of management.

When England toured Australia at the turn of last year — and lost 5–0 — they took with them an 82-page ‘dossier’ listing dietary ‘requirements’, one of which was the regular provision of ‘pumpkin seed and goji berry breakfast bars’.