Not at sledging, however — which is putting opponents off by insulting them. Mostly it’s mere abuse; Steve Waugh and his team were said to have raised sledging ‘to new heights’. Probably we now try it too, badly.
That is the only point in the book where I differ from Berkmann. He seems to suggest that in order to beat the Australians we should become more like them. I was at Lord’s on the first day of the first Test Match of the amazing 2005 series. In the first over our very fast bowler, Harmison, hit Langer on the elbow above the arm-guard: he needed medical attention. A few balls later Haydon was hit on the helmet, and dazed. Ponting (‘bloody Ponting’) was hit on the grill of his helmet so hard that his face was badly cut. ‘A decent amount of blood’ notes Berkmann with po-faced glee. The point is that not one of the England team asked how they were or took any notice, they just chatted among themselves. Was this being ‘Australian’? It was more like war; and anyway, Australia went on to win the match, a fact that Berkmann rather hurries over.
How lucky you are, who see the word ‘cricket’ at the top of this review and read no further; nor will you read this pained, painful and funny book. The Ashes battle is about to be joined again, and we, the doomed, look forward to it with hope (wan) and trepidation (justified). Cricket is not boring because it goes on so long; on the contrary, the sheer length of the matches means that almost anything can happen — even an England win. We, obsessives, just have to keep checking. Five matches of five days can mean 25 days of semi-distraction, trying to live in two worlds at the same time, annoying everybody and feeling ashamed of this. John Arlott characterised the pleasure of watching cricket as ‘nearly guiltless’, and how well we, the entrapped, like Berkmann, feel the force of Arlott’s subtle qualifier, ‘nearly’.
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