Heat and dust, plus nonsense. If the high temperatures had arrived earlier, the England cricket authorities could claim that their brains had been cooked. But the dégringolade over Messrs Atkinson and Stokes had already occurred. Curfews: what nonsense is this? We are dealing with Test cricketers, not schoolboys. If a batsman can decide when to leave a ball outside the off stump or a bowler whether to go round the wicket or over it, the chaps can also decide when to draw stumps on their celebrations after a match.
I have a rule for walking in boiling foreign cities. Move at funeral pace and never pass a bar
These are the same authorities who want us to refer to batsmen as batters. Some battering may indeed be in order, though only verbal. Castigation is certainly justified, yet one suspects the victims may be too thick to realise when they are being mocked.
Batsman is a fine word, redolent of all the charm we associate with the game and its paradoxes. The batsman strides to the wicket: an elegant figure, greeted, one trusts, with a decent round of applause. Shortly afterwards, a bowler may well be trying to knock his block off. It is always worth remembering that it was a Wykehamist, albeit an untypical one, who invented bodyline. If Rishi Sunak had more of Douglas Jardine’s thrawn-ness, he might have been a more effective politician.
As for discipline, a final word should be left to the late – alas – Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, one of the last of the old-fashioned gentleman amateur captains. Amateur or not, he steered Hampshire to their first ever triumph in the County Championship. Someone once twitted him on the subject of rules: ‘Your team seem to do whatever they like.’ ‘Absolute nonsense,’ came the reply. ‘I am very strict. They all have to be back in their rooms by 9.30 – on the morning of the match.’
Thinking about hapless officialdom was enough to drive a fellow to drink, even before the tropical temperatures. I have a rule for walking in boiling foreign cities, which I formulated in Toledo a few years back, when the temperature was roughly 50°C. Move at a funeral-march pace, obviously. Use whatever shade there is, ditto, and never pass a bar. Rehydration is a constant need, beer is the best possible rehydrant, and do not worry about excess. One further traveller’s tip. Assuming that you have enjoyed a bit of lunch and are feeling like relaxing around a swimming pool, make sure that you are well in the shade in case you succumb to a zizz. I was once rescued by a fellow guest, otherwise I might have turned grilled-lobster coloured. Unhealthy.
At present, I am consuming plenty of Pimm’s. I always wonder why it has never been marketed properly in the States, where they have a much more suitable climate for it than we do. That said, they might need something stronger right now while contemplating the Donald.
White wine is also needed, and I have been consuming a lot of Assyrtiko. While doing so with some muckers, we returned to that age-old insoluble question: why did the Greeks call it the wine-dark sea? It might have been that the waters could have looked red-wine-coloured for a time after a bloody naval battle, but as a generality, surely not.
I have also been drinking a lot of white Gigondas, from the house of Pierre Amadieu. Their reds are outstanding and their blancs are equally memorable, drawing on the Clairette grape, which gives them complexity and helps them to age. This is far more than heatwave wine and could stand up to a fine white Burgundy. Makes one wish to drop everything and head for the Rhône.
Comments