England/ the Biography
I have not finished Simon Wilde’s biography of the England cricket team but from the parts I have dipped into, I am picking up a theme that our national cricket team was imbued in a patrician and colonial ethos embodied by the MCC being a private club and a distinction between amateur and professional which was long out of date. As ever the Rust takes a contrarian view. It is undeniable that England has lost its moral authority over the game of cricket as the money and therefore the power is in the subcontinent. But is the game better for it? Since that moral authority was lost in the 1990s we have had ball tamperimg and match fixing. Perhaps this happened before but I don’t recall it. Ben Stokes in a fight outside a night club at 2.00 am is not the first unsavoury incident involving an English cricketer. The very future of the red ball game is in doubt even after an absorbing series with India which went to type as the home nation always seems to win easily.
And were the amateurs arrogant public schoolboys or artists of their craft? I would not mind seeing Peter May ( Charterhouse) Colin Cowdrey (Tonbridge ) and Ted Dexter ( Radley) in the present line up. A line up that collapses all to readily and which Geoff Boyeott has exposed their technical limitations with footwork. I remember a fascinating conversation with Colin Cowdrey at a dinner in which he made the point eloquently that in an era of little money the amateur was a useful component to the side. Their grounding may be more privileged than the professional but Peter May for example developed a superb eye by playing rackets and Colin Cowdrey similarly with fives. Even the notion that they were dim witted charming dilettantes does not stand too much scrutiny. Colin Ingleby Mackenzie (Eton) was shrewd skipper who led Hampshire to their first championship and Ted Dexter a ground breaking captain of Sussxe in the first years of limited overs inthe Gilllete Cup. Not do I imagine did thesetoffs have it so easy. Mike Brearley ( City of London) has referred to the tyranny of the senior pro though the one at Middlesex came to be one of his gretatest friends and admirers.
One of the joys of cricket is its subtlety . Who would have thought that that most patrician and snobbish of criclet correspondents Jim Swanson would detest apartheid so ? Or conversely that rural grammar school boy John Arlott be so knowledgeable on claret?