We have been told for some time that England cricket isn't as bad as it seems. It isn't. It is worse. Lord MacLaurin looked like a saviour at the start of the season. Three months later, it was apparent even the Archangel Gabriel couldn't help our cricketers. The Aussies didn't just win the Ashes. England were crushed, stuffed, battered, licked, trounced, walloped and, in the end, humiliated. It was taking candy from children, robbing the blind, men against boys.
There is no easy comeback from the position England are in to where the Australians are. By the time England reach their present standards, Australia will be a further 10 years ahead. MacLaurin and Tim Lamb have done what they can, which is not the same as saying they have achieved what they really wanted. Had that happened, the dole queues would have been full of redundant committee men, alongside many of the players they employ. If county cricket has been an elephant couchant for all these years, it could be argued MacLaurin has at least got it to stir. His next trick will be to get it moving.
The major problem we face has more to do with what happens at school than what goes on at Lord's. I don't see how we can maintain a steady flow of talent if the source is dried up. We are all aware of the reasons why cricket is no longer taught in many schools. What we need to discover are ways of getting cricket into the curriculum because if we don't then the game is dead from the root upwards.
A week or so ago, I went to Scarborough for the BBC. The idea was to return to the holiday spot of my youth and make a nostalgic film for television. My childhoods were spent at Scarborough during the cricket festival, mainly because my father, who knew about these things, reckoned the town possessed the best beach-cricket wickets in England. A daily cricket match on the beach was obligatory. Every member of the family was used. Mother was long-stop with a coat to smother the ball, grandad an immobile square-leg in a deckchair. For all that, they were keen affairs on a beach which by mid-morning was covered with similar cricket matches.
A couple of weeks ago, when we went on the beach, there wasn't a cricket match to be seen. There were plenty of youths playing football and a mixed game of rounders but not a cricket bat in sight. I asked the footballers if they played cricket. They shrugged. A couple said they played for clubs but not at school. We went to a nearby shop and bought bat, ball and stumps. Soon we were filming a game. After a while, the children forgot they were on television and started enjoying what they were doing. There was one exceptional talent, a young boy who bowled with a side-on action and knocked the cover off the ball when he was batting. He didn't play cricket at school. For most of them, the game on the beach was probably the only cricket they would play all season. Fifty years ago, the Yorkshire County Cricket Club could likely have chosen their next team from the talent on Scarborough beach. Nowadays, they would have more chance of spotting a flying fish than a cricket bat.
Producing young people with an appetite for the game, properly stimulated and coached by the education system, is one thing. What we do with them when they become professional cricketers is quite another. Nasser Hussain had his say on the subject, whereupon the confrontation between Mark Ilott and Robert Croft made him appear to be more matchmaker than sage.
While agreeing with most of what he had to say and applauding his nerve in saying it, I feel there is a danger we are missing the real lesson taught us by the Australians. Fundamentally, they beat us and will continue to do so not because they are better at sledging, or in-yer-face confrontations, or growing face stubble, chewing gum or wearing sunglasses. They beat us because they are better cricketers, better coached in techniques designed to survive the severest ordeal. It is not so much that attitude which makes them superior, more the way they are taught the rudiments of the game.
Looking to the immediate future, there is little cause for optimism. We are in for a long and bumpy ride. Mike Atherton says we will win in the West Indies. I am thinking of joining the queue outside his door to get a bet on. Much has been made of his future but the question of whether he goes or stays as captain is no more than academic. Captains Ahab, Cook and Marvel would make little difference to the present set-up, which is about four cricketers short of a team. The only possible advantage in Atherton resigning the captaincy is to allow him more time to concentrate on being England's best batsman. In any case, he deserves a break. Hussain would make an admirable replacement.
Sadly, the woeful performance by England, followed by the debate on MacLaurin, somehow deflected attention from the achievements of a remarkably good Australian team. Although it has been depressing to witness the way they have demoralised their opponents, there can be nothing but admiration for the positive and challenging way they played the game. They are the kings of cricket and their jewel in the crown is Shane Warne. I cannot remember a time when I enjoyed watching anyone explore the art and craft of spin bowling more than I did Warne this season. It seems to me he is now at the every peak of his talent, certainly the greatest spin bowler I have ever seen.
He goes about his business with an action as plain and functional as his bowling is complex and imaginative. In other words, the approach to the wicket gives nothing away, unlike Bishen Bedi's glide-in which announced a master mind at work or Mushtaq Ahmed's bouncy, wristy signature. Warne's greatest gift and that which sets him apart from all other bowlers of his kind is his ability to constantly attack the batsman while bowling tight. No matter what the state of the game or the wicket, he is always at the batsman's throat,
His partnership with Ian Healy is one of the wonders, the great joys, of the modern game. Purists might like a little less chat between the two but no one can deny the almost telepathic understanding between them; the manner in which one is constantly posing new riddles and the other instantly solving them.
Warne is the main reason I look forward to the Oval where I hope I am joined by as many county committee members as are at present pondering the MacLaurin report and worrying about the future of the game. The hope is that when this great Australian team take the field, they might raise their eyes and understand what has to be done. Fact is, this season we have seen the future. It is already 3-1 up in the series and it works.