Watching England play Wales in the Six Nations the other day, a lacklustre match between two middling sides and distinguished only by lashings of Welsh hwyl as the visitors outperformed their role as underdogs, I remarked to the Irish friend who was with me: ‘The Welsh don’t like the English, do they?’ ‘Get in line,’ my friend replied. Fair point, and the Scots, proud members in the queue and a better team than Wales, will sorely test the idea on Saturday that Steve Borthwick’s newish-look side are any better than their predecessors.
Scotland are scarily good, prevented from beating France only
by a blade of grass
For some time it felt as if England didn’t have to do much more than turn up to the Calcutta Cup to get the win. Scottish victories seemed so rare they even had documentaries made about them, e.g. the magnificent film The Grudge about the famous 1990 Scottish victory, with David Sole’s spine-tingling slow march as he led his team on to the field. The result, which denied England a Grand Slam, was about much more than rugby though, notably Scotland’s detestation of England in general and Margaret Thatcher in particular.
Now things have changed, not least after that fabulous 38-38 draw at Twickenham when Scotland came back from 31-0 down. England have won only once in their past six meetings. Scotland’s only weakness is they might be too pumped up, as coach Gregor Townsend admits. Still that’s what lone pipers on the Murrayfield roof and ‘Flower of Scotland’ being belted out by a packed stadium after a refreshing lunch can do to you.
Only after the final whistle will we know what strides Borthwick has made with England. Scotland are scarily good, prevented from beating France only by a blade of grass. This was how Grégory Alldritt, the outstanding French No. 8, described the game: ‘One of the best wins of my time with France.’ That is how good Scotland are.
Mike Procter, the great South African who has died at 77, was a reminder of the peak of county cricket, well-thumbed copies of Wisden, games of Owzthat and a time when all the counties had superstar overseas players. Procter was as Gloucestershire as Asif Iqbal was Kent, Javed Miandad was Glamorgan, Imran Khan was Sussex and Clive Lloyd was Lancashire. Procter, with his mane of golden hair, curious wrong-footed bowling action and a ferocious capacity to smash a cricket ball into the next town, would probably have been an effective T20 player too.
His passing reminds us that those days are gone. If Procter were 28 now he would be wondering how to spend his IPL millions, whether to commit to the Quetta Gladiators for another season, and was Test cricket really worth it. I doubt he’d be often seen at Bristol.
Meanwhile, over in India, forget the bellyaching about the rights and wrongs of Bazball. The big question is, have we got a new Bradman on our hands in Yashasvi Jaiswal? The young Indian opener seems to have an inexhaustible appetite for ginormous centuries, though we like to point out that nearly all his scores have come in Indian conditions and he has yet to face Jimmy Anderson on an Old Trafford greentop in April. That’ll show him. England’s own newish golden boy Ben Duckett has (curiously) argued that England should take some of the credit for Jaiswal’s scoring. Eh?
They are an interesting pair: as a teenager Jaiswal lived in a tent in Mumbai and sold street food to make ends meet. Duckett enjoyed the splendours of Stowe School, where he totted up 15 centuries playing for the first Xl. I have never been to Stowe but its main cricket ground looks like an Elysian Field, with a perfect batting pitch. If only all our promising young batsmen had the chance to play on it.
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