Spain vs Italy: who would win the wine Test?

In London, the weather is a gentle sashaying mockery. An Indian summer reminds us of the sullen apology of summer which we have just endured. Soon it will be winter, and ‘A cold coming we had of it’.

As always, poetry is a respite. My first resort is usually Yeats. In English, no one except Shakespeare is better at turning language into music. I have probably apologised before now in these columns for using those ravaging Yeatsian lines which have become a cliché because they are so true, so powerful, such an epitome of the post-1914 world and its agonies. ‘The best lack all conviction / The worst are full of passionate intensity.’ Has any historian ever rivalled that lapidary conclusive eloquence?

Such eloquence is too painful when public affairs are at a nadir. Yet there are other art forms, not all of which are in decline. In recent years, there have been attempts to denigrate proper cricket. Batsmen are referred to as ‘batters’. There have been depressing moments when the top of the English order almost deserved such disparagement: when our only reliable batsmen were Root and rain. But there has been improvement. ‘The glory and the freshness of the dream.’ Cricket is a harsh game. Its psychological demands on players are at least as tough as the physical ones. It is also an entrancing spectacle. A perfectly timed cover drive; the knowledge that at any moment, a dropped catch could transform the match. Like bullfighting, this is not merely sport. It is an aesthetic, harmonising beauty and brutality. Like bullfighting, it has inspired serious writing. At his best, Neville Cardus was as good as Hemingway. Discuss.

We are now approaching the final match in a splendid contest. This series has swung back and forwards, from drama to error to courageous recovery, especially by the Indians.