Jay Landsman: “It’s not Jimmy’s fault.”

Bill Rawls: “No?”

Jay Landsman: “No. Jimmy is an addict, sir.”

Bill Rawls: “What’s he addicted to?”

Jay Landsman: “Himself.”

Apologies if you haven’t seen The Wire (where have you been? It’s to television what the 2005 Ashes is to cricket – it really is that good), but I would like to put forward Kevin Pietersen as the Jimmy McNulty of English cricket.

It’s not only the perceived self-regard, as evinced in the above dialogue. Just as McNulty is “good police” (and fans will know how to pronounce po-leece), there has never been much doubt as to KP’s ability as a batsman. Equally, the two share a lack of respect for those in authority – the “chain of command.”  While admirable in many ways, this insubordination will only ever lead to one winner. At heart, The Wire is about the individual’s impotence in the face of the institution. Both McNulty and KP were fated to end their careers somewhat tragically. As Lester Freemon puts it in The Wire, “You put fire to everything you touch, McNulty, then walk away while it burns.”

The accuracy of this analogy has not been disabused this week, with the publication of KP: The Autobiography. “What the f*** did I do?” is perhaps the most famous McNulty quote, and I would suggest it would make an apt subtitle for KP’s book.

That’s not to say that KP is entirely to blame. Andy Bull, reviewing the book for The Guardian, writes that “the balance, the sense of mutual culpability in what went wrong, is lost, because the wounds are too raw, and the anger too strong.” As that “mutual culpability” line suggests, there are many sides to this story.

As ever, sport reflects society, and this whole sorry saga is no different. Consider the PR machines on both sides, the role of social media. Consider, too, those two sides. On one, a self-entitled man-child; on the other, an institution that has little regard for the players and the fans. Should ring a few bells with fans of The Wire, perhaps the greatest mirror ever held up to society.

Cricket, by being subjected to this very public and increasingly juvenile squabble, is Way Down In The Hole.

It was the equivalent of a wet Tuesday night at Stoke, and I was beginning to wonder what I might do with my evening …

What followed was two hours of downright hilarity. Like all the best things, it started organically: my friend Andy wondering on WhatsApp whether the success of “Rio on Rio” could be replicated with a TV show entitled “Hames on Hamas.” “Gazza on Gaza” and “Pallister on Palestine” were offered on the same theme, followed by “Crooks on Crooks”, in which Andy suggested that “Garth goes into prisons and talks at inmates until they lose the will to live or agree never to commit a crime again.” From there it broadened out to shoehorning footballer’s names into TV titles, and I’ve rarely laughed as much in my life.

What follows is an attempt to preserve the best efforts of Andy, Joe, Matt, Raoul, and myself. With a nod to TV Go Home, Charlie Brooker’s website, here it is:

7.00 In The Zat Knight Garden

7.15 Knightmare – Zat Knight, minus sight, is instructed through a virtual football match

7.45 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – Nile Ranger is charged with cleaning up Newcastle’s night life

8.45 Hartbeat – Joe Hart revives the much-loved art show

9.15 Teenage Mutant Ninja Skrtels

9.45 Ruud Dog & The Dweebs – Animated tales of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s time in Manchester

10.00 Fash In The Attic – John Fashanu surprises unsuspecting home-owners by hiding in their loft and periodically shouting “Awooga!”

10.30 Coast – Winston Bogaarde explains just what he got up to during his time at Chelsea

11.00 McCall The Midwife – Documentary following Stuart McCall’s  fight against prejudice as he retrains to be a midwife

11.30 Mickey Quinn: Medicine Woman

1.00 Kroos Women – Toni Kroos hosts the otherwise all-female chat show

2.00 Total Rideout – Richard Hammond presents from Stanley Park as contestants give Paul Rideout a piggy-back round an assault course

3.00 To The Manor Bjorn – Dropped in an unknown location, Stig-Inge Bjornebye has to make his way to Oxford United’s old ground

3.30 Friedel’s About – Brad Friedel plays pranks on unsuspecting members of the public

4.00 Little Britton – Leon Britton scours the country for people shorter than him

4.30 Kahn Cook, Won’t Cook – The former Germany net-minder rustles up anglicised curries

 5.00 Hughesround – Sparky’s take on the day’s top news stories

5.30 Bullseye – A view of the world through Steve Bull’s eye

6.00 Dancing On Allardyce – B-List celebrities perform dance routines on the West Ham manager’s ample frame

7.00 The Henchoz – Stephane Henchoz presents the flagship magazine show

7.30 Djimi’s Lahm – Warts and all documentary following Djimi Traore’s attempts to genetically-engineer all-purpose footballers

8.00 Challenge Anelka – The moody French striker races against the clock to complete a publicly-spirited task

9.00 Molby City – The former Liverpool midfield stroller stars in this hospital drama

9.30 Police, Camara, Action – Titi Camara narrates this montage of reckless driving

10.00 Hughes at Ten – Aaron Hughes with the day’s top news stories

10.35 D.O.W.I.E. – Contrived reality show following Ian Dowie to the tanning parlour

11.45 The Sky Zat Knight – The hapless former Fulham defender wanders around pointing aimlessly at the sky

12.00 The Dyer – Gritty crime drama set in Baltimore, following the police in their attempts to build a case against deadly drug lords, Bruce and Kieron Dyer

1.00 FILM Shakespeare Ndlovu – Gwyneth Paltrow and Peter Ndlovu star in this period drama

3.00 FILM Barton Fink – Drama in which Joey and Warren Barton attempt to make sense of their minds

5.00 Pleatmate – Davina MacCall goes kerb-crawling with the former Tottenham manager

5.30 Some Mothers Do Adam – Adult drama starring Charlie Adam

6.00 Hughes 24

 

 

The Trent Bridge Test has for the last five years become a fixture in the calendar. It has also meant that my dad doesn’t have to put any thought into buying me a Christmas present. As per last year, I decided to make a week of it. Day 1 eating pork pie with my dad, Day 2 drinking with my pals. Squeeze in a stage of the Tour de France and the World Cup semi-finals, and it was always going to be a busy week.

Monday

I’ve written before of my ambivalence towards racing of any kind, but the Tour de France, with its races within races, its team dynamics, and sheer scale, is an exception – at least theoretically, because I can’t say I follow it religiously. Given that the third stage was starting in my home town, however, ignoring it would have been churlish. My friend Donna had even booked a table at the front of All Bar One.

I was prepared to be underwhelmed. They wouldn’t be racing down Regent Street, but it would still be over in a flash. I hadn’t imagined, however, that it would be so eerily quiet. To be fair, it is difficult to clap while operating the camera on your smart phone, but it was odd that the preceding police motorbikes got a better reception than the cyclists. Having said that, it was another reminder of the power of sport to unite people and bring them together for an all-too-rare shared experience.

Tuesday

If watching the Tour de France had been a touch surreal, then the first World Cup semi-final continued the trend. I had little doubt that Germany would win, that Brazil, missing Neymar and Thiago Silva, had run their race, but 5-0 after half an hour? In a World Cup semi-final? In the Maracana? It wasn’t just a victory for Germany, it was also a win for football. The kind of football that Brazil were – were – famous for. The kind of football that Colombia couldn’t and were not allowed to play against Brazil. That quarter-final had marked the end of any feeling that the tournament would benefit from the hosts staying in it. Crying, praying, luck, lenient refereeing, tag-team fouling, and home advantage could only take a team so far. But 7-1. Wow.

Wednesday

Not so many breathtaking moments at Trent Bridge. Sure, the first view from our front centre seats on the middle deck of the Radcliffe Road End was one. It’s easy to see how my dad could spend so much of his retirement sat up there. Ian Bell’s diving catch at a funky short mid-on was also pretty spectacular, but after that? Not much, bar the quality and quantity of pork pie.

That’s not to say that the first day of a Test series isn’t fascinatingly absorbing. For all the talk of the lack of life in the pitch, it was a chance to scrutinise the much-criticised captaincy of Alastair Cook. It’s easy to captain when the ball is doing something, but it soon became apparent that the ball would be slowly doing nothing on this wicket. To his credit, Cook realised pretty early on that nothing would go to slip, and if it did it wouldn’t carry, and went looking for other ways to force the game. It was interesting, too, to see some very obvious support for the captain amongst the senior players. Bell, for so long giving the impression of diffidence, was now part of the brains trust – as he should be, having played Test cricket for a decade.

On a thankless day, no fingers could be pointed at Cook’s captaincy. If body language is anything, Cook didn’t look to be overly weighed down by the pressure that has been mounting this year. Jimmy Anderson never gives the impression of particularly enjoying the labour of bowling, but was he looking more dog-tired and down on his luck than usual? My friend Raoul, no stranger to the concept of fatigue on the back of a week of nights, likened Anderson to Boxer from Animal Farm. It is great for Test cricket that this is a five match series, but to shoehorn five Tests in seven weeks is not fair on the players. If the pitches are all as lifeless as at Trent Bridge, the likes of Anderson and Stuart Broad, already hampered by a dodgy knee, will not be too far from the glue factory by the end of the summer.

For all the sympathy for the thankless task of bowling on a dead pitch, it is often overlooked that batting in such conditions is also by no means easy. Easy to survive, yes, but difficult to score with any fluency. That MS Dhoni had to resort to skipping out of his crease was instructive, as was the fact that even this great attacking batsman couldn’t really force the pace of the game.

As the euphemism goes, it was a day for the connoisseur. As was, later that evening, the second World Cup semi-final. Lionel Messi and Arjen Robben were as neutered as Anderson and Dhoni. They couldn’t blame the pitch, rather some excellent defending from the likes of Javier Mascherano and Ron Vlaar. “Concrete” Ron is one of a number of outstanding nicknames to have emerged from this World Cup, and I can’t help feeling that, along with everything else, this is another area in which England are lagging behind. Where the Dutch are coached by “The Iron Tulip” and Mexico by “The Flea”, England have Roy Hodgson. Roy “The Owl” Hodgson? And Stevie G, Jags and Wazza don’t have a patch on “Concrete” Ron and Xherdan “Kraftwurfel” (Power Cube) Shaqiri, and perhaps this is symptomatic of a lack of imagination throughout English football.

Thursday

The forecast for Thursday had been about as uncertain as Cook’s footwork of late, but it turned out to be another scorcher. Would the sun be shining on the beleaguered England captain…?

A year ago I had witnessed Ashton Agar’s dream debut, when he and Philip Hughes racked up that record-breaking tenth wicket partnership. Clearly, tail-end batting has improved beyond recognition in the last ten years, but England’s inability to polish off the tail has become a nasty habit. Mitchell Johnson showed in the winter the value of being able to blow away the tail, and, while Cook doesn’t have anyone with that kind of express pace to toss the ball to, it is inevitable that his captaincy should come into question – as it did in similar circumstances against Sri Lanka. Here, as Bhuveneshwar Kumar and Mohamad Shami, India’s 9 and 11, eased to half-centuries, Cook had the pitch to offer as an excuse, and to a degree a captain is only as good as his bowlers, but I can’t help feeling that being an opener isn’t ideal in this situation. It’s lose-lose for Cook. Captaincy suffers when thoughts might drift to batting, and batting suffers after the stresses of finishing off an innings.

It was all-too inevitable when Cook fell early on in England’s reply. That it was a slightly freakish dismissal only added to the sense that Cook can do no right at the moment, that there appears no end to his exploration of all the ways of getting out. I sense there is a lot of goodwill for Cook, but something has to give. I really hope it is in the shape of a century, but if he continues to struggle then his position in the team has to come into question. I am less concerned with his captaincy than his form with the bat. That’s not to say I am convinced that he will ever be a great captain, but it is too early to judge. This Test, in my eyes, is only his third game in charge of this team. Of his team. In personnel and strategy, the team Cook inherited was still Andrew Strauss’ and, perhaps more pertinently, Andy Flower’s. Cook’s run of poor form, however, stretches further back into the previous era, and this is where his place in the side has to come into question.

What are the options? Take away the captaincy? Drop him? Both? It’s fast becoming an issue where carrying on regardless holds no logic. But who would take over as captain? Matt Prior? Might not be around for too much longer. Stuart Broad? Fitness question marks with him, too. Bell? Joe Root? Who knows? And who would open? Michael Carberry? My preference would be for Alex Hales, who I have an inkling could be a modern-day Marcus Trescothick at the top of the order. England have lacked an imposing opening batsman since Trescothick retired, while other countries have benefitted from the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Chris Gayle and David Warner climbing into opening bowlers.

If only it were simply a question of form. There is also the political element, the ECB having very publicly backed Cook in the fall-out from the Ashes. As my friend Andy said, “there are a lot of ECB eggs in Cook’s basket.” It might be enough that the potential for Piers Morgan to crow is enough to prevent the ECB from stripping Cook of the captaincy.

Foolish pride, and a lack of alternatives – the reasons for inaction are hardly persuasive.

And what about Cook himself? How much the captaincy is affecting his batting – and his batting is affecting his captaincy – only Cook knows. He strikes me as being a particularly proud and stubborn character, so who knows if he would ever step down. At 29, and with an outstanding record, Cook is young enough and good enough to come out of this trot – as he did so spectacularly in 2010. Whether he believes he can, who knows? The biggest question is how best to get back in form, and it’s hard to believe that the answer is to carry on regardless. Form is hard enough to recapture without the pressures of international cricket and captaincy. Would giving up the captaincy free up Cook the batsman? Would playing away from the spotlight help? Taking a complete break from the game? I suspect we will know the answers by the end of the series. If not before.

What? No football today? Or tomorrow!? It was hard enough getting used to there only being two games a day for the last round of the group stages. And last Friday’s rest day wasn’t easy. Now you’re telling me the semi-finals don’t kick off until Friday!?

Fortunately, there is much to reflect on.

There is absolutely no doubt that Brasil 2014 has already been infinitely better than South Africa 2010 – and possibly the best World Cup of my lifetime. Not just for the moments of sheer, jaw-dropping brilliance – from Robin Van Persie’s headed goal against Spain to Tim Howard’s heroic display in goal last night – but also for the prevailing spirit of adventure. It’s not just the tactics that have to be admired: there has also (with a couple of obvious and notorious exceptions) been a relative lack of the kind of cynical cheating that has blighted previous World Cups.

The Dutch set the tone on Day 2 with that 5-1 dismantling of Spain, and the difference in approach from the final fours years ago was telling. With hindsight, it is easy to see that Spain (and perhaps tiki-taka) are not the force they were, but it was refreshing to see the Dutch not feeling the need to park the bus or kick lumps out of the opposition.

Indeed, there has been precious little bus-parking in this tournament. Where they have been seen, buses have instead been left idling, ready to roar off down the other end of the pitch, driven by the likes of Holland’s Arjen Robben and Colombia’s Juan Cuadrado. Even England – against Italy, at least – entered into the spirit of things. Compared to four years ago (and eight years ago, for that matter), England played an infinitely more watchable brand of football against Italy.  If England are going to lose (and let’s face it, they are), then better to lose like that.

So, how to explain this fashion for cavalier, attacking football?

Perhaps it is a culmination of rule changes designed to favour the attacking team, aided by lenient and, on the whole, excellent refereeing. The dying art of defending, and a distinct lack of great defenders can also rightly be pointed to. The standard of goalkeeping, helped by a ball that isn’t quite so unpredictable as previous editions, has rightly been lauded, but it is also a reflection of the standard of defending. Manuel Neuer’s excellence as a sweeper-keeper against Algeria, for example, was born of necessity, given the suicidal positioning of the terminally slow Per Mertesacker.

These are hardly new trends, however. Has football really changed that much since Greece were winning Euro 2004, or Chelsea were winning the Champions League just two years ago? If it has, it is a change in attitude. I’m sure this change in attitude, rather than being a noble attempt to give the fans what they want, is just a practical solution to the problem of winning football matches, but long may it continue. Football has always been a balance between attack and defence, and, for now at least, that balance seems to be just perfect.

Vincent Ludwig: “Dreben!”

Jane Spencer: “Frank!”

Frank Dreben: “You’re both right.”

I was reminded of this great bit of dialogue from The Naked Gun while listening yesterday evening to the post-match interviews at Edgbaston. On a grey Birmingham day, the “Mankading” of Jos Buttler gave a perfect example of the grey area in cricket between law and morality.

To recap, Buttler, having been warned for backing up too early, was run out by Sachithra Senanayake. The very fact that the umpires, Chris Gaffaney and Michael Gough, gave the Sri Lankan captain, Angelo Mathews, the opportunity to retract the appeal suggests that the issue is far from black and white.

On the one hand, Senanayake was perfectly entitled to appeal, just as Mathews was perfectly entitled to uphold that appeal. No rules were broken. On the other hand, however, Alastair Cook was perfectly entitled to question whether it had been the right thing to do.

While I find it funny to see English cricket, apparently immune to accusations of sanctimoniousness  and hypocrisy, back on its high horse, I have to admit to being very uneasy with Mankading. Put in Buttler’s shoes, I would have been livid. Put in Matthews’, and I know I wouldn’t have upheld the appeal.

To be fair, something has to be done. As Mathews said in his post-match interview, “I don’t know how to stop a batsman doing it continuously.” Explicitly allowing for Mankading while implicitly allowing the moral outrage that follows does nobody any favours. Neither would banning the Mankad and allowing batsmen the advantage of stealing a march. Alec Stewart, on TMS, suggested that a run penalty could be introduced, and I don’t see why “one short” could not be called, in the same way as for not reaching your crease while turning for another run is,  for the non-striker leaving his crease prematurely.

There is a less radical solution. My friend Andy posted on WhatsApp a YouTube clip of Chris Gayle, bowling for West Indies, warning Eoin Morgan of the possibility of getting Mankaded. Nasser Hussain’s commentary is instructive: “That’s a warning, I think. That’s Chris Gayle’s way of warning the batsman. With a smile on his face.” Perhaps warnings, as with much in life, are more effective when done with a smile on the face. Just an idea, and it goes against the ultra-professional ethos of modern international cricket, but I think it might just work.

Perhaps there has been no greater symbolism in my 35-year-old life than the disappointment of opening a pack of Panini stickers only to find they are all “gots.” Let’s not dwell on the futility of existence, however, but instead celebrate World Cup Fever, because, with less than two weeks to go, I am starting to show all the symptoms. I’m even excited about tonight’s friendly with Peru. Well, as excited as anyone over the age of 12 can get about England friendlies.

Much of my World Cup Fever can be put down to what has euphemistically been dubbed the World Cup Barn. Brookside Manor House in Bronygarth is no barn – it has a snooker table, tennis court and hot tub! – but the World Cup will be centre stage for the week that 20-odd friends and I are there. I can’t wait.

It’s not just the prospect of me and my middle-aged, middle-class mates enjoying a World Cup holiday that is getting me excited. It’s England’s prospects, too. Or, rather, the lack of prospects, because the build-up to Brazil 2014 has been refreshingly realistic where the national team is concerned. My theory is that we have passed on the over-hyped mantel to Belgium. Think about it: the Belgian squad is full of players who have done it week in week out in the Premier League – the Best League In The World©.  I’m willing to be proved wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they went out on penalties in the quarter-finals, blaming too many egos and the lack of a winter break in the Premier League.

Back to England, and, while I’m happy for expectations to be lowered, I’m not convinced that the squad is any worse than it has ever been in my lifetime. Matthew Upson played in South Africa, remember. The squad is less experienced, for sure, but that may be a blessing. Likewise, the weaknesses in defence. There is an irony in Roy Hodgson, chased out of Anfield for playing dull football, having to harness the attacking verve of Liverpool, but that is surely the best chance of success. Maybe success in terms of results, but, more realistically, success in terms of maintaining the sympathy and support of fans and media alike.

On the subject of Liverpool, perhaps the heartbreak of their end-of-season implosion will act as motivation – particularly for Steven Gerrard. It must be hoped, too,  that Wayne Rooney is not lacking in motivation, not to mention fitness. It is high time a player of his undoubted talent lit up a major tournament again.

All in all, I am ready to be pleasantly surprised by England – starting tonight, and ending up … who knows where? Moreover, I am ready for a holiday. Bring on the World Cup (Barn).

The new coach is the old coach. The new squad, with the exception of Harry Gurney, is the old squad. Perhaps England’s brave new world isn’t all that new, but along with today’s other announcement – Graham Gooch’s departure from the post of batting coach – it seems a good time to look back and assess the Andy Flower era.

In the toxic post-Ashes atmosphere, there is the risk that it is forgotten that the Flower era, to someone of my vintage, hit unimaginable heights. Winning in Australia in the middle of three consecutive victorious Ashes. Winning a global event. Winning in India. Number one in the world in all three formats.  England were a good team.

Were they a great team, though? It’s true that you can only beat what’s put in front of you, but in many ways the tree which England topped was not a particularly healthy one. Given that they were alone in prioritising Test cricket over the IPL, it perhaps should have come as no great surprise that England rose to the top. Then again, England’s relative shunning of ODIs has never given them much advantage in the Test arena, and belittling the opposition does a disservice to the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson – and, of course, Flower.

As with the perception that KP was a player of great innings rather than a great player, it might be said that England played some great matches (and series) but were not a great team. The emphatic victory at Adelaide in 2010 was described as the perfect storm, and indeed it was arguably the high water mark for Flower’s England. Compared to the great 1980s West Indians and the Australians that followed, England’s period of dominance was just that: a storm. Could you imagine the West Indies of Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Malcolm Marshall losing 3-0 to Pakistan? Or the Australia of Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath ever getting whitewashed?

Why England could not sustain their dominance is an interesting question.

There is the question of quality. Compared to the all-time greats that filled those all-conquering West Indies and Australia sides, England lacked players who could win games in all conditions. Perhaps KP gets in that bracket, but the rest, as good as they were, would struggle.

Then there is strength in depth. Would the England Lions ever be described as the second best team in the world as Australia A were once memorably hailed? England lacked the conveyor belt of talent that the great Windies and Aussie teams enjoyed. Heirs to Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood were never found, and it must be a doubt that Jonathan Trott, KP, Swann and possibly Matt Prior can be adequately replaced.

Last of all there is the cultural aspect. England sporting triumphs in all the major sports have been famous one-offs. 1966. The Rugby World Cup. The 1981 and 2005 Ashes. Taken in this context, perhaps Flower-era England is as good as it gets. Is there something in the English psyche that prevents us from carrying on winning? Are we satisfied to win once? Are the rewards too great? Is it post-colonial guilt? Are we more comfortable thinking of ourselves as underdogs? As amateurs? As a nation do we have nothing to prove? Are we that arrogant? That lazy? Lacking in any kind of deep cultural motivation? Would any other nation have beaten itself up over the style of the 3-0 Ashes win last year? “Winning is never boring,” my half-American friend Ryan said, but he was going against the grain.

In defence of Flower’s England, it must be noted that they had to play a hell of a lot of cricket. Perhaps a couple of years at the top is all that can be expected now. Maybe the days of prolonged dominance by one great team are over. Storms instead of climate change. It is no coincidence that the ICC Mace has been passed around so frequently since the Australians lost their decade-long grip. It remains to be seen how firm the current Australian grip is. A whole generation of international greats seems to have retired, and the Test match landscape has yet to take shape.  With an ageing team and an international schedule that has never been more demanding, it would be no great surprise to see Australia come back into the peloton.

Equally, it would be a surprise if England quickly scale the heights of the Flower era. Or indeed the heights of the early Michael Vaughan era. That 2005 team is my favourite England team. Injuries and the fact that Australia still had the best wicket-keeper/batsman and the best leg-spinner of all-time – not to mention a few other all-time greats – prevented it from being a great team. Neither were Flower’s England great, which is not to say they haven’t been the best England team of my lifetime.

A composite team might just have been great, though:

1. Marcus Trescothick

2. Alastair Cook

3. Michael Vaughan

4. Kevin Pietersen

5. Ian Bell (Flower-era)

6. Andrew Flintoff

7. Matt Prior

8. Graeme Swann

9. Jimmy Anderson

10. Steve Harmison

11. Simon Jones

A lot has happened in the world of cricket since my last post. A lot has been written. What could I add? I haven’t seen a ball of the IPL, I don’t really know what to make of Peter Moores, and I can’t pretend to know what is going on with Indian cricket governance. But I saw Monty Panesar hit a sweetly-timed boundary. Twice.

There was a brief moment – between the World T20 and the IPL, and before the return of Moores to an England tracksuit – when all eyes were on the start of the domestic season. With England places up for grabs and reputations to be rebuilt after a disastrous winter, there is still more interest in the County Championship than I can ever remember, but for a while it felt like the spotlight burned as brightly (and unexpectedly) as the sunlight.

Fenner’s is only down the road, and my working hours could – could – have been designed to let me watch morning sessions of cricket matches, so I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t have popped in to catch a bit of Cambridge MCCU v Essex had the sun not been shining or if the England team still picked itself. It was a bonus, then, that it was Alastair Cook’s first appearance of the season, and a chance to see England hopefuls such as Ravi Bopara and Tymal Mills.

It remains to be seen if Panesar is in the selector’s thoughts – maybe he’s considered more hopeless than hopeful. I certainly wasn’t expecting his exploits to dominate my memories of this match. I had forgotten he had gone to Essex, to be honest, so it came as a surprise when he unmistakably made his way from the pavilion to join Bopara at the crease on day two. Essex declared shortly afterwards, when Bopara was out ten short of a century, and I would have to wait for Panesar’s batting masterclass.

On the plus side, I would get to see the much-hyped Mills bowl before lunch. Sitting side on, I was prepared for pace. Or at least I thought I was. I barely saw the first ball. Second ball crashed into Adil Arif’s pads and the umpire raised his finger. Interesting. Early days, but have England got their very own Mitchell Johnson?

Talking of Johnsons (stop sniggering, and get ready to pick up the name I’m about to drop), it was interesting to see the Cambridge MCCU captain, James Johnson, bat. JJ played for Camden, my club, last year, and is one of the best batsmen I have had the pleasure of batting with. The first time, away to Castor & Ailsworth when his knock of 92 almost won us the match, we put on 52 together for the second wicket. I scored 9 of those. It was like we were playing different games. I remember my first ball, coincidentally from the man JJ has replaced as Cambridge MCCU captain, Robert Woolley – a quick bowler who can boast the wicket of Kevin Pietersen on his CV. It was definitely more a case of ball hitting bat than bat hitting ball. Shortly afterwards, JJ, with a mere flick of the wrists, cracked a six over long on off the same bowler. Different game against Mills, although JJ played him well enough to survive until lunch.

While I’m dropping names, I remember Chris Wright of Warwickshire playing for Camden a couple of years ago. Yes, he bowled quickly and took 5 wickets, but I also remember that he scored 50 and looked a decent batsman at club level.

Which brings me to Panesar and the third morning at Fenner’s. Watching Monty bat in Test cricket, I bet the thought has crossed the mind of any self-respecting club bowler that they would clean him up in no time. Zain Shazhad of Cambridge MCCU could certainly have been forgiven for fancying his chances. He was on a hat-trick, after all, and the cries in the middle of “never get a better chance” echoed the thoughts of the crowd. Not only did Panesar survive the hat-trick ball, he then for good measure hit the two balls before lunch for four. The first was through straightish mid-wicket, the second just to the off-side of straight, and they were shots as good as any seen all morning.

Considering that Cook and Bopara were not out over night, that was not something I had envisaged as I made my way up Mill Road. It’s a funny old game.

The following Sunday I met my dad at Lord’s to watch the first day of his beloved Nottinghamshire’s game against Middlesex, and Peter Siddle batted as well as anyone all day. Admittedly, I missed the majority of James Taylor’s innings due to an excursion to my mate James’ new house in Willesden Green to watch the Liverpool-Man City game. While he is no Panesar, watching Siddle bat reinforced a thought that had occurred to me at Fenner’s. The differences between the levels of cricket are best illustrated by bowlers batting. A rabbit is only a rabbit in relation to its hunter.

I dread to think how many sheets of paper and how much ink I have wasted in my lifetime. Think of the trees. If you know where ink comes from, think of that too. Pity the school kids who have gone without. And for what? Not the novel that I’d like to think I have in me (and one day hope to get out of me). No, nothing so useful or profound.

Give me a sheet of paper, a pen and the freedom to do what I like, and more often than not my first instinct will be to jot down numbers one to eleven. Some people are nitpickers. Some pick their nose or pockets or locks. I pick teams. Maybe at heart I am a frustrated selector. The collection of notepads under my bed bear testament to my habit, and the quickest way of dating them is seeing who is playing right back or batting at six.

For a few years, since Paul Collingwood retired, the question of who bats at six was pretty much the only one to address when picking an England cricket team. I had to look to football to feed my habit. No longer. The cricket team doesn’t pick itself any more, and it is anyone’s guess who will line up against Sri Lanka at Lord’s on June 12th.

Alastair Cook will open, but what else can we guarantee? Ian Bell and Jimmy Anderson will presumably play. But where will Bell bat? Who will open with Cook? Will Stuart Broad, Joe Root and Ben Stokes be fit? Who will keep wicket? Who will be the spinner? Will Jonathan Trott or Steven Finn return? Will Michael Carberry or Tim Bresnan be retained? Can Ravi Bopara, Eoin Morgan or Samit Patel cut it as Test cricketers? What of the next generation? Gary Ballance? Jonny Bairstow? James Taylor? Sam Robson? Moeen Ali? Scott Borthwick? Chris Jordan?

For all the doom and gloom following a truly disastrous winter, it is an exciting time to be an English (qualified) cricketer. Throw in the football World Cup squad, and it’s an exciting time, also, for amateur selectors like me – and that’s before I’ve even considered my new job as Second XI captain for Camden CC. I might have to buy a new notepad …

I can’t help thinking that the world would be a better place – no worse, anyway – if Jonathan Trott hadn’t agreed to be interviewed. He was, presumably, trying to clarify and draw a line under the whole episode, but the result was a muddying of the waters. Not so muddy, however, that Michael Vaughan, in his Daily Telegraph column, and others, haven’t dived in – again, without which the world be no worse.

Vaughan’s beef centred on two assumptions. Firstly, that Trott’s assertion that he suffered from “burnout” didn’t square with the ECB saying at the time that his departure was down to a “stress-related illness.” Certainly, Andy Flower’s comments that “Trotty has been suffering from a stress-related condition for quite a while” and that “he’s always managed it very successfully” seems at odds with Trott’s take on it. The second assumption made by Vaughan is that this ambiguity and apparent discrepancy in stories will mean that “players in his own dressing room and in the opposition will look at him and think at the toughest of times he did a runner.”

While it may be academic to note that Vaughan has history with Trott dating back to an incident in 2008 when the then England captain accused the South African born batsman of celebrating a South Africa victory, it is worth considering the views of someone who has been there and done it. If, as Andrew Miller wrote, Vaughan’s view is “remotely representative of an average team’s attitude to mental matters, – and England right now, to borrow Stuart Broad’s phrase, are distinctly average – “then they are among the most valuable insights we could ever hope to get from former pros.”

It is not only Vaughan’s standing in the game that prevents me, as tempted as I might be, from dismissing his argument as grossly insensitive rubbish. After all, his conclusion that Trott was “suffering for cricket reasons” is not without logic.

Batting, perhaps more than any other sporting discipline, is a mental game. The title of Martin Crowe’s timely piece on Cricinfo says as much: “To bat right, get your mind right.” As David Warner proved with his ill-judged “scared eyes” comment, it didn’t take a trained psychologist to see that Trott’s mind wasn’t right during that Brisbane Test. Perhaps Vaughan was right about Trott. Mitchell Johnson might have spooked him, maybe he had been found out. Perhaps, as Rob Steen suggested on Cricinfo, he had trouble dealing with failure. All part of the game, one might say, but equally the game is part of life – a life in which one’s mental health is more important.

This is where I take issue with Vaughan. In saying that Trott was “suffering for cricketing reasons and not mental, and there is a massive difference,” I think he is missing the point. The point is that Trott was suffering. Suffering to the point where he felt he could no longer continue. What name we give to this suffering, and the reasons given for it, seem to me to be immaterial.

“I think every sports person’s been there and when that builds up to a certain point, you’re like ‘I’ve got to get out of here.'”

That quote, you may be surprised to learn, comes from a certain SR Waugh. In an interview yesterday in which he expressed sympathy with Trott, he went on: “You’re feeling really homesick and things aren’t going well – but it really wasn’t the way 20 years ago [to say anything or leave]. You just gutsed it out and that was all part of being a professional cricketer.”

Perhaps Vaughan is continuing the tradition of former players claiming that the game has gone soft. Bats are expanding as boundaries are shrinking. Outfields are quicker; the bowling slower. Pitches, as Geoffrey Boycott often reminds us, are no longer uncovered. Likewise batsmen’s heads. That is all undeniably true, but to suggest, as Vaughan does, that “there is a danger we are starting to use stress-related illness and depression too quickly as tags for players under pressure” seems incredibly harsh to me. The counter-argument is that we have progressed to a point where players like Trott no longer have to suffer in silence.

Leaving the tour would not have been a decision that Trott made lightly or suddenly. My first thought on hearing the news, after sympathy, was to think back to Trent Bridge and the first day of the home Ashes series. Trott top scored with 48 but I remember thinking at the time that it was a most un-Trott like innings. With hindsight it is easy to think that we were witnessing (before Mitchell Johnson had entered the equation, don’t forget) the first flames of the fire that was to lead to his burnout.

That he was allowed to burnout – as were the England team in general – is the most pressing issue. Maybe Trott – clearly an intense cricketer – should shoulder some of the blame. Perhaps he wasn’t managed particularly well. Less open to question is the idea that too much is asked of international cricketers. Admittedly, the back-to-back Ashes was an extreme case, but it doesn’t disguise the perception that the welfare of the players is forgotten in the scramble to satisfy the game’s administrators, television companies and advertising executives.