Carrying the flame

Regular readers will recall that myself and my young colleagues who are ‘in’ ‘the’ ‘know’ were actually – no kidding – the first publication to announce advance details of all this Indian leagues palaver. That was last April. As our media pals have, a full year on, now rushed to break the ‘news’ and discuss its full implications, we begin this month with some more tips they might like to consider for their next news updates.

1) Cambridge University have won the toss in the 1956 Varsity match at Lord’s and elected to bat. 

2) Mr Alec Douglas-Home has won the 1964 General Election, after standing on the Posh ticket. 

3) Mr Richard O’Sullivan has been asked to do an as-yet unnamed spin-off series from his early-’70s hit show Man about the House.

No need to write and thank us. We do it as a public service.  Actually, the Third Umpire’s mail sack has been bulging this month (it’s very very small). I am indebted to reader Ian Rumsey, of Uckfield, East Sussex who not only writes to support my campaign to get Bob Willis knighted for services to nay-saying but also encloses a DVD of Willis commentary ‘highlights’ 
that he has apparently been compiling for over a decade.

The things people do.

One of the clips is actually 100 per cent Paul Allott with not a sniff of Willis. But still. Nice to know I’m not alone. Possibly.

What will the long-term effects of the Indian leagues be, readers? Like Chairman Mao, I think it’s too soon to say. Chairman Mao didn’t say that about the ICL/IPL. He said it about the French revolution. His views on Twenty20 were, broadly, that it was a good thing, though he thought the fielding restrictions could be tweaked a little bit and wasn’t it interesting that everyone originally thought the spinners would take a caning but they’ve turned out to be the key men?

 You may have missed me carrying the Olympic flame through London, readers. To be honest, I was surprised to be invited, but given the rats and mice of the sporting world taking part, I thought my involvement was only fitting. Taking the torch from unsung ’70s Leicestershire trundler Gordon Parsons at the Cutty Sark, I cut a heroic figure for at least 200 yards before handing over to Howard from the Halifax adverts. 

Boy, it was a full-on day. As the snow tipped down on the sparse crowd, you couldn’t move for the hordes of security men barking orders. In many ways, it reminded me of the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy. All the big names were in the green room afterwards. Jan Leeming. That fella who stepped back into a swimming pool on a recent edition of You’ve Been Framed. You know the one.

I’m a big fan of the Olympics, of course. No matter what you say, I’m convinced it’s going to have a major regenerative effect on Sebastian Coe’s wallet. Most people only really watch the Olympics when the proper sports – ie the athletics – start. Me, I’m more of an enthusiast: I could watch swimming and dressage for literally minutes at a stretch.

But is there a place for cricket in the Olympics? One of my senior colleagues in the press box shambled over to me the other day. He looked like the sort of fellow you’d expect to still have Wartime betting slips still festering somewhere in the bottom of his suit pocket (“Germany – each way”). ‘Who,” he slurred, “are the reigning Olympic cricket champions?” 

The answer, of course, is Great Britain, who, having France set a target of 185 to win in the, bowled out France for 26 at the 1900 games in Paris. It was a farce all round: most of the French team were English, the winners were given silver medals and cricket hasn’t troubled the Olympic scorers since.

This was possibly the last time the England cricket team actually won a tournament. (Why not write in and say that there were actually only two teams involved, readers, so maybe it wasn’t that big a deal?) Like I always say: if one-day cricket and Twenty20 is such a lottery – how come England have never had a turn at winning? Apparently England have never won the football World Cup, either. Or, if they have, you certainly never hear about it. You’d think they’d mention that sort of thing more often, wouldn’t you?