It is not a simple game, but it is a natural one, demanding every human faculty for success and a wonderful capacity for surprise. Who would have backed Sri Lanka with confidence after England had batted for most of the first two days for 445 at the Oval? Who backed England to win the series against South Africa when they were a match down and 11 for two after following on 369 runs behind in the third Test?
It is true that the game's national appeal is to some extent threatened by an all-pervasive obsession with football, driven by commercial interests and fostered by television, radio and the tabloids. But there is no truth in the assertion that the summer game has lost its appeal to the young and it is depressing how often the lie is repeated without reference to the facts.
Ask anyone who works professionally or voluntarily with keen young cricketers. You certainly could not ask all the amateurs: there are only 65 full-time development officers, but, according to recent research by the English Sports Council, no fewer than 99,000 voluntary workers give up, on average, 156 hours of their time every year to cricket. They are by no means all schoolteachers, but this was the 50th season of the English Schools Cricket Association and they are contributing greatly still. The game is humming below the surface.
It is at the professional level that a mood of uncertainty prevails. From the showers of April to the mellow warmth of early autumn, events have moved at almost too fast a pace for rational analysis. It must surely be an encouragement, however, that England, despite brittle batting, thin bowling resources and two wickets all season for spin bowlers, defeated a South African side with an opening pair in Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock which ranks with the best.
Their batting against Angus Fraser, Darren Gough and Dominic Cork was not so impressive, but Jonty Rhodes remains a phenomenon in the field and he and Hansie Cronje in particular were a credit to their nation as ambassadors off the field: smart, courteous, friendly and articulate. England's cricketers should aim to be like that throughout the tour of Australia.
Television microphones have apparently exposed in Alec Stewart an abrasive style by no means unique to England or to him. He, too, however, has cut an impressive figure off the field in his first season in charge and he combined wicket-keeping to a high standard with many a classy contribution at number four, two places higher than I thought he would have the stamina to sustain.
Stewart's 164 at Old Trafford, and his stand of 226 with Michael Atherton, saved the summer. That Mark Ramprakash and Robert Croft kept the battle going just long enough was crucial too. If this England side are to succeed against the odds in Australia they will only do so by achieving the kind of unity which won Leicestershire the County Championship. By the highest standards they are not a greatly talented team and Sri Lanka's brilliant victory at the Oval put the joy of success at Trent Bridge and Headingley into perspective.
England's one-day cricket faltered this year, against South Africa in May and Sri Lanka in August. So close to a home-staged World Cup this was disappointing. David Graveney and company could pick at least two squads of 15 players with an equal chance of doing well in next year's 'Carnival of Cricket' and England will probably need some typical early-season weather conditions to get the better of sides of greater natural talent.
The selectors have to judge on the basis of a county game which is extraordinarily volatile. Only 45 draws in the championship (66 last year) is evidence of batting which has too often lacked character and technique. Leicestershire, Lancashire and Yorkshire were, however, all worthy of their success, but Glamorgan without Waqar Younis were suddenly ordinary again, Middlesex had a season to forget and no one can satisfactorily explain the persistent batting failures of Essex. It is as well that possible blood-letting might be avoided by virtue of a commanding victory over Leicestershire in the last Benson and Hedges Cup final.
Lancashire won the other two one-day competitions with a squad so powerful that winter touring commitments have rather disrupted their pioneering decision to employ all their players on 12-month contracts. Along with Surrey, Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire, the other three clubs who own their own Test ground, they have an in-built advantage which enables them to bid more for players on the market, including Mal Loye, chosen by his fellow players in the burgeoning Professional Cricketers' Association as their man of the season and now bound for Old Trafford or, more likely, Trent Bridge. John Crawley would surely have pipped him if the vote had come later and Matthew Wood might likewise have upstaged Andrew Flintoff.
Lancashire, all round, pipped Leicestershire as the county club of the year but because of the power of the chequebook one wonders how often they could succeed even with their powerful team ethos if the majority of players in favour of a two-divisional championship had their way. It is sad, but not entirely surprising, that Britannic Assurance have had enough of all the negative talk and withdrawn their patronage after 15 years. The championship has been the bedrock of the English professional game for well over a hundred years and is still beloved by all connoisseurs of domestic cricket.
Only in brief periods, notably 1945-60, have championship crowds been all that high and they are higher now than they are for equivalent competitions all round the world. But there is a large hidden audience which follows bread-and-butter domestic cricket through the newspapers. The championship will probably be without a sponsor next season, a transitional year, although Terry Blake, the England and Wales Cricket Board's marketing chief, says that he is ``still hopeful, especially if the new television contract offers some championship coverage''.
Parting is such sweet sorrow for professionals who have been playing as long as Mike Gatting, or Neil Taylor, or Andy Moles, or Graham Cowdrey, or Alan Igglesden and all the others who have decided or been obliged to move on. At minor county level, Peter Roebuck is handing over the captaincy of Devon after six outstanding years in which they have won the championship four times and the knockout cup three times.
There has been a mixed reaction to the attempts to make the recreational game more competitive. The two County Board competitions have been so far only a limited success and club cricketers have given the thumbs down to Australian-style two-day cricket, even the Yorkshire League discovering that a full weekend's cricket is asking too much of busy amateurs. But at under-17 and under-19 level, grade rules have worked increasingly well and stronger clubs throughout the country have begun to commit themselves to longer hours of play on Saturdays and a streamlined senior league.
Charities like the Lord's Taverners and the Brian Johnston Memorial Trust are doing their bit for the grass roots; so are many hundreds of business sponsors and the recreational wing of the ECB and the 38 County Boards through whom they operate. No less important, there have been serious attempts, notably in Essex, to integrate cricketers and clubs of West Indian and, especially, Asian origin into the general stream of the 'English' game. It is everyone's game, actually, and its heart is still beating strongly.