The bars are empty. The food village is deserted. Fish goujons and hog roast slowly drying out on industrial hotplates. Stewards perched on the edge of their boundary chairs, no longer looking out for potential oil protesters. Long faces in the Long Room, the members in mutiny. They haven’t been this angry since the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket report came out. In the middle, Ben Stokes playing cricket from the gods. The target is thinning. The Ashes are alive.
What larks we had! They talk in the England camp about making memories, and as the noise swelled, as the afternoon throbbed with possibility, as a million text messages pinged across the ether reading “get yourself in front of a telly”, perhaps this was exactly what they had in mind. Cricket as pure liquid entertainment. Cricket as national fixation. Cricket as the very best time of our lives, a red ball and a red pounding heart.
