Forever stumped

‘There can be no summer in this land without cricket’, wrote Neville Cardus, whose rhapsodic vision of the game lies at the heart of its mythology. Hardly a week goes by without somebody borrowing a phrase or two from Cardus to emphasise what cricket means to England — or used to mean, for the modern landscape is very different.

When England play their 1,000th Test match this week, against India at Edgbaston, it will be the only first-class cricket to be found anywhere in the kingdom. Between 28 June and 19 August, seven plump weeks at the height of summer, spectators have only one round of championship matches to enjoy, so dominant has the one-day (‘white ball’) game become.

It isn’t even necessary to play first-class cricket to be selected for England. Earlier this year, Adil Rashid, the Yorkshire leg-spinner, told the club he would no longer play in the county championship, as he wanted to concentrate on one-day cricket, particularly T20, a slog-fest which is hardly cricket at all; certainly not as Cardus knew it.

Yet Rashid went to Birmingham this week, restored to the Test team. His club were incensed, and little wonder. Yorkshire have won 32 championships, more than any other county, and continue to provide players for England, notably Joe Root, the current captain. They had nurtured Rashid, and this summer awarded him a benefit, which is usually a licence to print money. But when England called him up, despite his lack of first-class cricket, he had the gall to rebuke his club for not congratulating him on his selection.

Other clouds have gathered during this sweltering summer. Edgbaston will be far from full for the India Test, and neither will Trent Bridge or Southampton. There are even tickets going for the Oval, which is normally full to the gunwales.