Pathetic. Shocking. Clueless. Phew, that’s a relief. After a year of being obliged by results to shower the England cricket team in unequivocal praise, Geoffrey Boycott’s reaction in this newspaper to their rapid defeat to Pakistan this week returned us all to our familiar comfort zone.
Five months of being number one team in the world, of beating the brightest and the best, of inflicting trauma and humiliation on Australians and Indians alike, and all it really produced was unease. We tried gloating, but it never really felt right. Crowing about English cricket seemed about as convincing as Alex Salmond’s economic policy. Or Bruce Forsyth’s topiary.
Now, following just the one hapless showing in the cavernous emptiness of Dubai’s state-of-the-art but barely populated cricket ground, we can all revert to default. Now, we can relish the opportunity to point out that England appear to be suffering from just the three deficiencies: they can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field. Now, we can ladle on the sarcasm, dish out the verbal kicking, mock and moan. Now, we can go back to what has long suited us so much better: playing the sporting masochist.
It was always going to happen. The unfortunate corollary of being number one is that the only way is down. And the crown didn’t so much slip from England’s head as tumble to the ground at the merest hint of a challenge. Players who were peerless world-beaters a dozen weeks ago suddenly looked, on the neatly trimmed desert grass, as if they were students at the Miranda Hart school of comedy pratfalls.
And yet Andrew Strauss, the resolute disciplinarian at England’s helm, was probably right when he suggested that if his team was going to lose, this was not the worst way to do it. To suffer at the start of a series does not mean irrevocable failure. And after a winter in which England’s players have been garlanded with awards and endlessly told of their magnificence, a swift and rigorous reminder that they have feet of clay might concentrate a few straying minds.
Strauss’s ambition is extensive. He has not taken his side to the summit immediately to see them slide back down again. This is not a captain heading for the lifeboats at the first sight of a few rocks.
For the neutral, too, this was a revealing Test match. The last time England played these particular opponents, it was discovered that several of the Pakistanis were in the pay of match-fixers. Three of them will have learnt of the result of this match while on parole following prison sentences.
As a consequence of this, and the trauma of being obliged by the threat of terrorist attack to play their cricket away from home, it was widely assumed that Pakistan was a cricketing nation in its death throes. To see a young, skilful, engaged team of Pakistanis run England ragged was oddly encouraging. If nothing else, it proved that the challenge to English hegemony is much wider than initially thought. Which can only be good for the health of the game.
It also sets up the rest of the series perfectly. Strauss now has his reputation to restore. How he and his teammates respond will determine whether they truly qualify for the term “great”. The retort could be dramatic. Let’s just hope if that happens, and Strauss returns them to the top of the tree, there are a few more people in the stands to observe it.