It is the evening of Tuesday 13th September. After 24 hours of drinking, a famous sportsman is applying some permanent marker on the face of his even more famous unconscious team-mate. Another player is seeking out a busty, blonde model. A group of high-profile footballers?. Not out. It’s the victorious England cricket team with the players in question being Stephen Harmison, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Cricket was the new football, remember?

Fast forward a few weeks and time zones. Pranks, pints and plaudits have been replaced by heat, homesickness and hard work. The England cricket team are in the place ‘to send the mother-in-law’ according to Ian Botham, he was referring to Pakistan.

Yet as England’s arguably most important winter of cricket in years begins, the school playground, so often a barometer of popular culture, reveals crickets way out. Slide tackles have substituted the slider and stumps are now being used as goal posts again. The cricket craze has cooled but so has the weather. The cold is not conducive to spin. However there are two further factors beyond the weather which suggest that cricket has had its brief bat with the general public.

Firstly, summer cricket, like winter tours are on Sky Sports. Next summer cricket will be competing with the football World Cup for the public consciousness. Sky is not the platform for cricket to do this. The new fringe fans will be lost.

Secondly, there is never likely to be a series like Ashes 2005 again. It had everything except an Ashley Giles’ wrong’un. Last summer England won all seven test matches at home, yet it made nothing like the impact of this summer. This summer, two series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan (again) will struggle to bowl cricket back on to the front pages.

England take on Pakistan with cricket barely featuring in the red-tops in the run up to the First Test. The sport pages are more concerned with Beckham’s history with Argentina than what England’s 36-year-old spinner Shaun Udal has in store for Inzamam-Ul-Huq and co.

In the lead up to the three match series England have suffered the traditional smattering of upset stomachs that accompany a sub-continent tour. More significantly, they are without their captain Michael Vaughan who has suffered a recurrence of an old knee injury. In his place returns Ian Bell, who in the nets last week got bowled by the devilish medium pace of Peter Gregory, the team doctor.

(Ed Humphreys)

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