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Spectator Sport

Roger Alton

Wednesday, 2nd July 2008

Mighty Murray

Will the same happen to Federer, who hero-worshipped Borg, if he loses to Nadal? You can’t see the dark side having much appeal, but maybe the marble halls of his Dubai home, and the squillion-pound cheques from advertising promotions will be too strong a pull?

Let’s hope not, but in the delightful Nadal, tennis has a real candidate for beefcake beatification. Recently, on the night he won the Monte Carlo tournament, beating Federer in a thriller, he flew to Barcelona. Not on a private jet but on the Catalan Easyjet, Vueling. He flew economy, as that is all there is; he waited and had a drink at the same little airport bar as everyone else; he chatted shyly with one or two fellow passengers and then struggled like hell to get his giant cup into the hand-luggage compartment inside the plane, to everyone’s amusement. What a guy!

Elsewhere there’s relief all round for sports lovers that England aren’t playing cricket against New Zealand any more. We seem to have been at it since the beginning of the year, and it’s felt like being on a permanent diet of low-calorie ready meals. Perhaps that was why England behaved so shockingly over the run-out farrago at the Oval. The two sides had been together so long that England’s captain Paul Collingwood, not to mention Ian Bell who did the fielding and Kevin Pietersen who took off the bails, had forgotten what really matters — sportsmanship, honour and a sense of proportion.

So thank heaven for some real opposition at last. The first Test against South Africa at Lord’s starts in a week’s time. This should be a thrilling series, though why it’s only four Tests not five is unfathomable. In Steyn, Ntini and Morkel South Africa have probably the best fast-bowling attack in the world, and we should now, at last, get a chance to see how good England are, and get the measure of their prospects for the next Ashes series. Don’t hold your breath.