Carnival exposes England as modern paupers (21 June 1999)

21 June 1999

Carnival exposes England as modern paupers

Michael Henderson

"So that's the carnival of cricket, then." With a sad little dart at the official who had denied him entry, the man shook his head and left the ground. He shuffled off to his car, followed by his wife and a rather bewildered son, who was wearing, as modern children do, a football shirt. A father had been embarrassed and a young cricket-lover had been disappointed. Who's to say he won't be lost to the game for ever?

This happened at Old Trafford last Tuesday, the day before Pakistan met New Zealand in the semi-final of the World Cup. Old Trafford, it should be said, is not only a Test match ground but also a commercial centre where Lancashire routinely turn over millions of pounds each year. It is not some hovel in the sticks. Yet the man who took his lad there last week, 'on spec', to buy something at the club shop that might stimulate the boy's curiosity, was told the ground was closed and that was that.

Later that day, at the other Old Trafford, it was a different story. Bidden by a friend in Manhattan to buy "something to celebrate our glorious Treble", it was possible to buy all sorts of things relating to football, and to one club in particular. In no time at all one young New Yorker may become a football fan, like that boy of a similar age in Manchester.

Yes, the last month really has been a carnival of cricket! The World Cup that ended at Lord's yesterday afternoon was a bundle of fun from start to finish. Forget the bungled sponsorship deals before it kicked off, the comic smoke effects at the opening ceremony, the official song that nobody has heard, the inadequate practice facilities on rain days, the patchy BBC coverage, England's dismal performance and the public indifference that went with it. Just digest what we have been instructed to believe: it was a carnival to end them all.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive." The competition organisers have been guilty of self-deception on a grand scale about the fun-of-the-fair. No matter. We can ignore them. The cricketers did and, by ignoring them, they saved the tournament. 'Carnival of cricket' was only ever an ad-man's phrase and ad-speak, as everybody knows, bears little relation to the world as others see it.

Despite all the tosh spoken about an inclusive, happy-clappy, touchy-feely, new-fangled beano, where everybody 'has a good time', it is possible to judge this World Cup purely in cricketing terms, and in the end there was enough quality to make it a success. The two best teams ended up in the final, so it must have been a reasonably good competition.

If it wasn't a multi-cultural event, it was certainly a multi-racial one, as a cricket World Cup always will be in England. This is the only cricketing country that accommodates enough supporters of all the other teams to make it so and, in any case, England is, unusually among big European nations, a hugely tolerant place, however much we are told it is not.

But that's as far as we can go in emphasising the host country's contribution to this tournament. To watch the high-powered, multi-talented and imaginative performers of Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and India is to be reminded of how far England have fallen behind the rest of the world. We truly are the paupers of the modern game.

If this World Cup has helped to amend one or two perceptions of the game as it exists today, and not keep it set in some post-Edwardian aspic, it has done a noble service. There are still some misguided folk who imagine that England is the home of cricket and that, because Lord's is Lord's, God is in his Heaven.

They should know better now. Lord's is still here, looking marvellous as ever, but England is no longer the home of cricket. The nerve centre is the sub-continent, and the powerhouse teams are in the southern hemisphere. That is where the game is being shaped for the coming century, whether people like it or not. The English influence on the world game is negligible on the field of play and, at best, advisory off it, like a ludic House of Lords.

The England team in this competition played like dullards and spoke like old-fashioned trade unionists. When Alec Stewart looked forward to the opening match against Sri Lanka by saying it was just another match, it was the world of beer and sandwiches, and those famous "full and frank discussions" that were neither full nor frank.

Thank goodness they went out, otherwise we would have endured two more weeks of joyless cricket. Mike Gatting said the other day that there are some good players in this country, and he is right: it is his job to pick them for the forthcoming Test series - and one hopes he does. Don't go back, Gatt, to those who have failed. They had the chance a month ago to show England in a good light and they flunked it. Remember the old Jim Reeves number: He'll Have To Go.

Still, faint heart never won fair maid. On Saturday afternoon I saw the most remarkable sight in west London. The local urchins, who normally make a nuisance of themselves, were playing cricket, or at least a form of it. It was such an extraordinary sight that it demanded a double-take, but there it was: a young chap with a piece of wood was preparing to face his pal.

I'm not sure they have a television to watch so they can't have seen much of the World Cup. In some way or other, though, the game has filtered down to them, which must be what the organisers had in mind when they dreamt up that misleading appendage. If the event has stirred a few souls into playing the game it won't matter so much that our Test grounds are determined to obstruct the curious young.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph