Sport

No-one ever bought shares in Alastair Cook because they were sexy. No man has made so many runs with so little flash. But no Englishman has made as many as 12,472 runs in test cricket either. If the quantity of test cricket played these days helped Cook build his own mountain of runs, it remains the case that no-one, from any other country, has ever made as many test runs while carrying the burden of opening the innings. The opener is a breed apart. Few people want to open; not all those charged with doing so enjoy it. The position requires a very particular set of skills. There is never a hiding place. You bat, as Mike Atherton observed when Cook announced his retirement, when the bowlers are at their freshest and the ball at its hardest.

If we were to discover Jose Mourinho lately fantasised during press conferences about mowing down the assembled hacks in a hail of semi-automatic gunfire while yelling at the top of his voice “SAY HELLO TO MY LEETLE FRIEND”, I think, on the whole, we’d understand. His rise, like that of the similarly arriviste Tony Montana in Scarface, has been both meteoric and, in its own way, violent, but now the white hot charisma that defined and propelled it seems very obviously to have burnt itself out. It must be hard on him. Mourinho’s arrival on the global consciousness in a shimmering aura of Latin arrogance back in 2004, all Hollywood good-looks and hair gel, was scintillating.

Blame it on a marketing survey. In 2001, the England and Wales Cricket Board commissioned the biggest piece of market research in the game’s history. They were told cricket was ‘socially inaccessible’, and that there existed a vast swath of ‘cricket tolerators’ — those who didn’t hate the game yet didn’t attend matches. So the ECB decided to take cricket to them. Twenty20, which could be crammed in after work on a midsummer’s evening, was created in the summer of 2003. The new game followed a traditional path: born in England, but perfected abroad. After India overcame its initial opposition, the country inexorably became the home of T20.

Which would you least like to see coming towards you? An Uber driverless car, Ant McPartlin in his black Mini after a long lunch, or a Johnny Sexton up and under? Sexton is a rugby genius: two of his kicks won Ireland the VI Nations Grand Slam at the weekend (as predicted by this column, we should modestly note). The first was the miraculous drop goal from as far away as the Gare du Nord which beat France in the final seconds in Paris; and the second was the milli-metre-perfect kick to the England line which led to the first try. England never recovered. Sexton’s penalty, incidentally, came after Owen Farrell had late- tackled the Irish fullback; something worth considering amid all the ballyhoo about the newly matured Farrell.

Who doesn’t love the Murray family? Andy, a unique sporting hero; Judy, a magnificent coach and the best tennis mum. And, er, Jamie? Fine doubles player of course. But he’s now gone way off piste calling for vastly more prize money for doubles players, adding: ‘There’s a lot of excitement around the doubles game.’ Are you sure, Jamie? There is no excitement about doubles tennis apart from during the Captain’s Plate at the local club. Doubles is a sideshow at tournaments, rarely shown on TV apart from by the BBC, who have 2,000 Wimbledon hours to fill. There’s not a sane sports fan in the world who could name the doubles winners at last year’s Grand Slams, never mind previous years, because nobody cares that much. Jamie Murray is no.

As regular readers will know, Caroline has developed a fanatical interest in tennis and is currently captain of the ladies second team at the local sports club. I have written before about how her new-found passion has turned me into a tennis widower — she is out two or three nights a week during the high season — but I thought that was the extent of its impact on our marriage. Turns out I was wrong. The nights she spends at home with me watching television are even more emasculating than the nights she spends out. Why do I say this? Because the only thing she wants to watch is tennis. There was a time when I used to have to defend our monthly subscription to Sky Sports, with Caroline dismissing it as a needless extravagance. Not any more.

Away from politics for a few moments. Football. What about Manchester City? The pundits and experts were euphuistic in their praise for City’s late-achieved win over the vermin, West Ham. And we were told that winning late is the mark of a good team and that it engenders positivity and confidence among the squad. Maybe so. At the same time we were told that West Ham had been 'gritty' to hold on for so long, and this might give them a foundation from which to escape the relegation trapdoor. I doubt that a little more. City have been running away with the title this season – I tipped them to win the league back in August, and there they are, a sackful of points clear at the top. But look through their results going back to early October.

What a privilege it is to watch Manchester City in the age of Pep Guardiola. I can’t recall a club side so lauded so early in the season, but the lavish praise seems justified. Could his Midas touch be young England’s best hope in Russia? Noel Gallagher, yes him, has been speaking about the ‘cosmic’ football City are playing under Pep, and who are we to argue? Guardiola seems to be getting the best out of Stones, Walker and Sterling. These three plus the Tottenham backbone of Kane, Dele Alli and Dier bringing their club form to the national team, along with the young England talent that did so well in the international age-group tournaments, could add up to a thrilling new team. But we have been here before… As for the rest of the Premier League?

It’s not easy to get hold of Ángel Hernández, the legendary Mexican chemist who for a decade provided illicit performance-enhancing drugs to numerous athletes, including, he claims, all eight 100 metres finalists at the Beijing Olympics. It took me just over a year of trying. The FBI also struggled. The story goes that when they eventually caught up with him in 2005 he had been holed up in a hotel room in Texas, living under an assumed name for two years. Presented with numerous incriminating wire-tapped telephone conversations and bank statements as part of the investigation that eventually sent three-time Olympic gold medallist Marion Jones to prison, Hernández became a state witness in return for avoiding chokey.

England won the cricket World Cup for the fourth time. Huzzah! England reached the semi-finals of the European football championship. Huzzah again! Or you can, as some have preferred, say well, it’s not really England, is it? It’s England women — and that’s not the same thing at all. Ten points for observation, eh? I remember when I first noticed. But there’s less power, less speed and it’s altogether less thrilling a spectacle than the men’s versions, they say. Anya Shrubsole, the demon fast bowler who secured the win for England by taking six wickets in the final, only bowls at 70 mph; she’d be cannon fodder in a men’s game.

Have you been cheering for the excellent Johanna Konta at Wimbledon? Go, Jo! Or should that be Go, Yo? Johanna (pronounced Yo-harner) was born to Hungarian parents in Sydney and came to Britain when she was 14; her parents moved to Eastbourne while she went to train in Barcelona. She became a British citizen in 2012. Is she really British, then? Or is she a Plastic Brit, exploiting our great nation for what she can get? Greg Rusedski came from Canada to represent Britain at tennis in 1995, aged 22, even wearing an ill-advised Union Jack bandana. The Lawn Tennis Association (Britain’s national federation) later tried to persuade Novak Djokovic to become British; there were agitated talks during the Davis Cup tie between Britain and Serbia and Montenegro in 2006.