‘England’ win

We live in a multi-cultural age. Sharing identities in different religions, professions and ethnicities. People are more Venn diagrams of various interests, collating diverse understandings of what it is to be a person. We are living in an enlightened age of acceptance, tolerance and openness.

Yet, why the buggering bumblebees must we to pack our side with bloody Saffers?

Why in the name of all that is Sir Garfield and holy do we persist in this farce? Even my local mumbling librarian can see that this is wrong. And she wears purple corduroy jackets.

Now, I don’t want to get all BNP on you, but, really, what is the point of international sports if it doesn’t provide an acceptable vent for our racist, nationalist, parochial, aggressive, bastardly tendencies?

Great. A load of guys acting under the England brand beat some other guys. Now, let’s flick over to the IPL and watch the same again, only with reshuffled players and more gratuitous boob wobbling.

International cricket is special because it can tap into my grey, crusty heart, and enliven some passion in my otherwise monotone world. The stirring of petty and tribal instincts are considered base and unworthy. But why? Other appetites are pandered universally: sex and food are vulgarised and over-elaborated requirements, whose rituals extend far beyond rational necessity.

Yet, these twin appetites probably constitute 90% of human mental activity. (Not ours, obviously.) Huge industries focus and heighten these demands, channelling them to ever more frenzied levels.

So, why can’t we enjoy a good old fashioned bit of tribal chest thumping? Why is that so different?

I found it very hard to obtain much pleasure out of Kevin Pietersen’s and Craig Kieswetter’s championship-winning innings. I could appreciate them, and enjoy them as a cricket artefact, much as I would when watching, say, Chris Gayle bat, but I could not cheer them on for the greater glory of Twickenham.

They were just some guys. They weren’t my guys. And, because of this, an elevation of ‘my’ team as supposedly the best in the world, does not feel as special as it should. Rather, the team that is currently based in the same country as me has one some trophy.

So. Give me good old fashioned English slumping at the second hurdle, and take your clinical, detached ‘successful’ cricket.