Cricket- eternally the summer game.

Cricket - eternally the summer game.

Cricket never really needed any introduction nor it did require any emphasis or confirmation. It was always there quietly waiting its turn until it was told to move forward to the head of the queue. When the strangest Premier League football season heads for its traditional summer break in just over a month, cricket will tumble forward like an excited kid who can barely contain their relief when the school bell goes.

Cricket just does it with its customary style, an effortless bounding down the pavilion steps after which the players in thick white sweaters appear as if by magic and the umpires with their pristine white coats spin coins from bunched fists, treading forward very deliberately and carefully. The English summer can commence on time, in chilly April, hoping that a warm May can pave the way for the sweltering heat and, occasionally mugginess, nay less humidity, of June and July. 

It only seems like yesterday since Joe Root's England team were rushing around in joyous circles, celebrating a gripping World Cup Final victory over New Zealand with a ball to spare. How enthralling was that as a sports spectacle. In fact most of us were covering our eyes, holding onto our breath and hiding behind the sofa such was the intensity and melodrama of that memorable day. But now we've all calmed down and it will be just over a year since the covers came off, the wickets were tenderly maintained and the sound of ball against willow bat was heard resoundingly across the land. 

We do vaguely remember surrendering the Ashes to Australia but we'd rather not be reminded if you don't mind. A vast majority of English cricket supporters do like their moments of patriotic fervour but losing to Australia and the Ashes is just about the worst thing that can happen to upset sporting sensibilities. England, it has to be said, are not gallant losers because they believe that their cricket team are infinitely superior but then the feeling is, you suspect, probably mutual. 

Exactly 40 years ago Ian Botham and his merry men of England rode roughshod over an Australia team who must have regarded defeat as the ultimate affront, a diabolical liberty in fact, an earth shattering indignity that could never be tolerated again under any circumstances. But then facing near certain defeat Mike Brearley, England's studious and highly intellectual captain, whispered something in Botham's ear and the result was a hyper active, animated and improbably destructive display of bowling and batting that English cricket may never see again. 

Still, things happen and if we turn the clock forward we now find a new County Championship season is almost upon us or so we hope it will be. At Lords, the Oval, Headingley, Old Trafford, Trent Bridge and Southampton's Rose Bowl the cricketers in their immaculately ironed shirts, bulky pads and snazzy helmets will clomp their way down the pavilion steps to trickles of applause. From the very young to the elderly they will, between them, conspire to whip up a proper atmosphere at some point during the summer. 

But then again we may have to wait for the cricket season just for a while. Boris Johnson, Britain's now battered and bruised Prime Minister, has given shops, non essential shops, gyms, nail parlours, department stores and most of Britain's now creaking infrastructure permission to function again. Yesterday the regional shopping centres were rejuvenated and revitalised as if suddenly somebody had flicked a switch and a thousand light bulbs were shining brightly. 

On the cricket fields of England the feeling is one of nervous trepidation, a sense of deja vu, a recognition that cricket will still be left staring grimly out of its window and getting very bored. The trouble is that those postcard pretty village green cricketing strips in the English countryside are raring to go and nobody can give them any date as to when normal service will be restored. Besides, this is where the heartbeat of English cricket can be heard quite clearly and grassroots cricket may just go up like a puff of smoke if they can't be allowed to wear their brown and green caps, the chance to put up that makeshift scoreboard where numbered slats are still the order of the day.

Away in the distance  hundreds and thousands of combine harvesters and tractors will be ploughing their lone furrow, acutely aware that a village cricket match could be up and running shortly. Frustratingly it's the uncertainty that could be eating away at every cricketer across Britain. They'll be twiddling their fingers in their dressing rooms, dreaming of half centuries and centuries while all too aware of the significance of the next couple of weeks or so.  

In the meantime all we can do is think back to those mellow days of yesteryear when the celebrated cricket writer and legendary broadcaster John Arlott would go into chapter and verse about the wine he'd just polished off while considering the merits of a Wally Hammond century or the artistic brushstrokes executed by a Len Hutton, Denis Compton or the extraordinary Sir Donald Bradman. 

Cricket offers soothing comforts to fevered brows when the washing machine stops working or the drill next door to you is simply designed to make your life hell. Cricket is synonymous with picnics in the park, summer fetes, village craft fairs, smelling the honeysuckle of the summer festival of life, the goodness of life, the cracks and pulls of the opening batsmen to the boundary, the tentative nudges to backward square leg, forward defensive prods to silly mid on and off, flicking and sweeping the ball arrogantly past third man and then telling yet more jokes to humorous umpires. What other sport could possibly offer more? It has yet to be found.