Since the start of June, watching England’s men’s Test team play cricket has been as much fun as it has been in recent memory.
The sun has shone (largely; this is the British summer, after all) and under the inspired new leadership team of captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum, England have pulled off four incredible victories over New Zealand in London, Nottingham and Leeds, then India in Birmingham on Tuesday.
They say a week is a long time in politics. Well, a month is a lifetime in English cricket. Cast your mind back to the start of June.
The men’s Test team had won one match in their last 17, being thrashed in the Ashes by Australia (the barometer by which English cricket measures itself). Much worse still was the fallout from the harrowing testimony of Azeem Rafiq, a former England Under-19 captain about his time as a player with Yorkshire. He accused the club of institutional racism and laid bare the turmoil caused when invited to speak with parliamentary privilege before politicians in November. The crisis enveloped Yorkshire, but soon extended much further.
This shone a light on the game’s issues with accessibility and inclusivity, which are facing a reckoning. So did empty seats for the first Test of the summer at Lord’s, where prices were extortionate. Despite so much good work by charities, there are barriers to entry at the bottom of the game, and it is mighty expensive to go to watch the professional game, too. As a result, cricket is over-reliant on private schools to produce players.
For years now, all this has been part of a wider culture war raging within the game. Much of it has centred on the decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board to launch a new tournament and format, the Hundred.
Its critics consider the Hundred expensive and unnecessary, and believe it is marginalising the county game. Its proponents remind us that it has returned live cricket to a free broadcast for the first time in a generation and is a game-changer for women in the sport.
The truth is somewhere in the middle, but the argument is toxic and the ECB have often been their own worst enemy, furthering ire by stoking the fire.
For the last few weeks, the bitter wrangling that comes up with all these issues has been drowned out by the thudding thwack of Jonny Bairstow’s bat. Stokes and his men cannot solve them all, but they would surely try if you asked.
