The Summer Field

204 professional cricketer to feel that he is not part of the success or failure of the presentation; he is in it for himself, to support his own ends, his wife and family; it does not affect him personally whether it rains or not, or whether the play is dull or exciting; he is out to do as well as he can for himself. Sheer self-interest explains why past and present cricketers in the early 2010s called for franchises, not counties, to play the T20 game in England, as in India and Australia; franchises that players could buy into, part-own, and take money out of. While franchises would be as outrageous a grab of common property as any privatisation of Britain’s once nationalised industries, or the enclosure of common land two centuries before, we ought to make allowances for the pro’, no matter how selfish and deluded. A doctor can bury his mistakes; the sportsman makes his in front of anyone paying to watch. Once the pro’ stops succeeding, or grows too old; or even if he is still succeeding and falls out with someone more powerful, or he is injured and someone younger does well in his place — he is out, whoever he is. ‘There was a time when an England team without WG seemed scarcely thinkable,’ The World of Cricket magazine said in April 1912. * If you are going to Lord’s from the north, down the A5, it is always worth giving yourself extra time to pause on Abbey Road. The spectacle starts early, once they have eaten and set off from their hotels. You might find a coach-load of Germans; or young Japanese, with arms military-straight, walking carefully, to tread as the Beatles trod on the zebra crossing outside the recording studio, for an album cover photograph. And how the tourists To The Present and Beyond Sir Garfield Sobers opening a gym at West Bridgford School, Nottingham, June 2011.