Roger Alton Roger Alton

As England’s cricketers wobble, the rugby team are finally getting it together

You can tell Stuart Lancaster used to be a schoolmaster. His players are learning

Mitchell Johnson Photo: Getty

My friend Miles was bowling in a festival of wandering cricket clubs in Oxford the other day. First wicket down and in walked an immaculately turned out Japanese gentleman. As he took guard, he turned to the slips and said, ‘I’m the best batsman in Japan.’ Miles’s first ball he edged to the keeper, and tucking his bat under his arm he said to the slips again, ‘But I’m also the only batsman in Japan.’ Ah, cricket, lovely cricket.

It’s a long way from the Ashes and Jonathan Trott collapsing from unspecified stress issues or Michael Clarke snarling at England’s No. 11 batsman, Jimmy Anderson for heaven’s sake, to ‘get ready for a broken fucking arm’.

Is this really what people want out of cricket? If sport just becomes some manifestation of screwed up nationalism or thwarted machismo, then it starts to lose any value. It’s fine that these teams don’t like each other; some of the players in the same dressing room don’t like each other either. But winning and losing with grace make sport the finest expression of human endeavour. A spicy Test series is great, and this Ashes is already wildly more thrilling than last summer’s. But it’s just bloody cricket, the greatest game. Don’t mess it up, guys.

We can see why Clarke did what he did — because Australia now has a genuinely menacing, potentially damaging and unquestionably very fast weapon in Mitchell Johnson. But quite how Johnson has turned from a slightly laughable, overinked figure whose mum was worried about his girlfriend into the most scary bowler in the world is beyond me. It can’t just be his Zapata moustache, can it?

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in