England: psychologically ill-equipped for success

England, feeling pity for their toiling Ceylonese chums, and remorse for doing so well in their recent test match at the Singhalese Cricket Club, decided to give away whatever advantage they gained.

By contrast, Sourav Ganguly, an Indian, when he’s on top he rams home the advantage by relentlessly battering his way to a double hundred. England, on the other hand, are happy to simper out into the sunset.

In an interview, England captain Michael Vaughan said,

“Well, it’s like this: we rolled up to Colombo in a satisfactory “under-dog” position, ready for a plucky, British come-back, and upon enacting that spirited recovery, we rather, well, you know, we felt sorry for winning and held a vote and decided to sort of let Sri Lanka win.”

There was some gestures toward out-cry by the press, but Vaughan was only saying what every Englishman thinks. We don’t like winning. Victory on the field is like beating your dad at chess, you want to do it, you yearn to do it, but when you do, you are overcome with a strange guilt. Perhaps it’s best just to lose, we think. Avoid all that unseemly smugness.

This, I deeply suspect, is a pervasive and sub-conscious presence that guides all Englishmen’s actions. We have the loser gene. Look at football, Eurovision, primary school results, etc.

There are some players that have had intensive shovel-around-the-head therapy, enabling them to turn off this gene – take Ian Botham. Others have evaded it through foreignness – take Kevin Pietersen. The rest of us, however, irresistibly follow instinct. Trying to fight it is foolish. You’ll just go all Matt Priory, and no one wants that.

Not even Matt Prior's mum.

No, it’s best just to accept failure. This is why English beer is the best in the world – we have so many opportunities to drown our sorrows.

By the way, the answer to the last blog’s question was, inevitably, overpoweringly, crushingly, “no”.