The view from Old Blighty - 4

Andy Zaltzman’s Cricinfo articles never fail to arrive punctually at Comedy Central. But whilst his latest piece on the IPL was chugging along nicely, inducing more than its share of laughter from the Hughes sofa (or more accurately, the idle man reclining upon the Hughes sofa) it gradually became clear that I had boarded the wrong carriage. Having travelled on his train of thought for most of the journey, I was forced at the last minute to leap from the speeding vehicle of logic and roll down a grassy embankment of disillusionment.

Jumping from a metaphorical locomotive isn’t easy, but I had no option. So what was it that could have provoked me, all these days later, to create such a shaky analogy? It wasn’t that he expressed his lack of interest in who might win the IPL. I don’t care who wins it either. What led me to pull the emergency cord was the conclusion that he drew from that insouciance. Not giving a Mark Nicholas about who won the thing, he seemed to be saying that it would not therefore be permitted to cross the electronic threshold into Zaltzman Land.

Do other people feel like that? If so, then what is cricket about? Why do we watch it? Do we only care about a match because we want one side to win or another to lose? These are big fat hairy challengers that every cricket person should at one time or another get into a wrestling ring with. They are fundamental questions that deserve to be fully explored by a literate, learned and erudite writer.

I won’t be doing that, obviously. For me, as Ronnie Irani would say, it’s simple. I like cricket. I watch a lot of it. Really, far too much of it. Not because I care who wins any of it, but because I like it. I’m watching the IPL because the best players in the world (and Ajit Agarkar) are playing the best sport in the world in the same place at the same time. What other reason do you need?

Cricket is like the works of Shakespeare (yes, really, trust me on this.) When you file in to a performance of Romeo and Juliet, are you carrying an enormous foam hand that says, ‘Chak De Capulets!’ on one side and ‘Tybalt Rocks!’ on the other? Do you come out of the theatre shaking your head because you felt Mercutio was on the wrong end of a poor decision? No. The play’s the thing. So it is with cricket. It’s the game, stupid. As Oscar Wilde definitely didn’t say, there is no such thing as the wrong or right result; there is only good or bad cricket

There is of course, a third way to look at the IPL. I know that there are people in England who have only taken an interest in the tournament whilst the English players were involved. For them, the entertainment has been rather thin, though they have, if they’ve been paying attention, witnessed a fascinating phenomenon, known as the Freddie Paradox. It runs something like this. Pre-IPL, everyone was agreed that Andrew Flintoff was a snip at $1.55m and would do the canary-coloured ones proud. Post IPL, everyone is equally adamant that the big buffoon can barely hold a bat and is so deficient in the important skill of bowling slightly more slowly than usual that he should never have gone in the first place.

I say ‘everyone’, by which I mean cricket journalists, by which I mean former England cricketers. And if you are prepared to be patient, you may see another paradox. Currently, the ex-pro press corps are unanimous that Andy Flower is much better than they said he was two months ago and that the selection of a man named Onions is a sure sign that England can win the Ashes. Make a mental note of this so that you can compare and contrast with what they say amid the ashes of England’s Ashes hopes in mid August.

But I digress. Freddie didn’t do very well nor did the rest of them, with the exception of Ravi Bopara. Still, at least we now know for sure what kind of England captain Kevin Pietersen could have been. For Bangalore, he strutted, he clapped and he chivvied and all of it registered high on the decibel scale. He was a tattooed mother hen with a megaphone. Sure, he lost most of the games he played in, but he did it at an impressive volume. And Collingwood’s and Shah’s familiarity with dug-out facilities at all of South Africa’s main stadia could prove very handy when England tour there later this year.

Coinciding with the departure of the Englishmen has been a noticeable stripping out of dead wood as international class egos are ignored in the pursuit of victory right now. The franchises are like Formula One teams, frantically tinkering and modifying mid-race, with the result that those making the early pace are now in danger of being overtaken. Even Bangalore, now running on Kumble, a lower emission, higher efficiency fuel, are looking like contenders. It’s all very confusing.

Thank goodness then for the old-school incompetence of the Kolkata Knight Riders. John Buchanan’s sequel to ‘If Better Is Possible’ will presumably be entitled, ‘Can It Get Much Worse?’ to which the answer is, undoubtedly. Kudos though to the laptop-bothering Sun Tzu quoting coach. In such an open format of the game where anyone can beat anyone, it takes a special kind of magic to string together six defeats out of seven.

Finally, you may have noticed that these ramblings contain no mention of commentators. That is because I have realised that they are impervious to criticism of any kind. Like a herd of charging rhinos with their Ipods turned up full, they are not going to listen to reason, even if it is shouted in their faces. I realised that satire was futile when I heard Alistair Campbell admit that he had run out of nouns with which to describe the action. Muting is too good for them.