Hill Farm

I headed out for a cycle this morning, not quite early enough to catch the beautiful skies that have been blipped so extensively today but I beat the forecast rain (which has now arrived). I ran into a mate of mine, Steve, and joined him and his buddy for a ride out to Grassington and back. It's a long time since I've enjoyed any company on the bike. It meant I went a bit faster than I would have done on my own and it felt good to push a bit harder. It was fun to enjoy a bit of banter too. I need to do more of this.

I have to make comment on the sad finale to the Ashes series in Australia. Cricket is not everybody's thing but I think this series has been fascinating to observe, wherever your loyalties lay and whether or not you have any interest in cricket, or even sport in general. It's been an astonishing human drama, all played out on a world stage. We have witnessed a hitherto very successful team undergo a complete psychological disintegration. This kind of mental breakdown is normally a private affair but these guys have fallen apart while millions of people have watched on.

No doubt the press will savage the team and the key individuals who have so spectacularly failed to perform. Former players like Michael Vaughan and Geoffrey Boycott have called them pathetic. But that's all too easy to do. These are talented and skillful players who have simply lost belief in their game. Their talent and skills are intact, and I'm sure we will witness them again before too long, but on this tour, in these five cauldrons of expectation and disappointment, they have lost touch with them.

The only player who has been immune is young Ben Stokes who came into the team in the second game with nothing to lose. He has been fearless while the rest have been riddled with fear, afraid to make mistakes. Cricket, like all sport, like all artistic endeavour indeed, is instinctive. If you have the natural talent and the skills have been developed over thousands of hours of practice, then the key ingredient to success is just a confidence in your own ability, the confidence to trust your instinct. Thought is your enemy. Under the huge burden of modern analysis our players have got into a situation where they are thinking about every aspect of their game instead of just playing their natural game.

They haven't turned from good players to bad players overnight. It's all about the context, one where the Aussies have been enjoying exactly the opposite experience. Full of confidence, their cricket has grown more fearless and more naturally instinctive with every match. Almost every bad ball has been dispatched, almost every catch has been held. They have been an unstoppable force. Factor in a waning of desire from a jaded England team that has played too much cricket in recent years, under too intense a spotlight, and what has happened in this series was almost inevitable after those first two days in Brisbane.

So I have a lot of sympathy for the players involved. Unlike almost every other sport, cricket demands that play goes on well after a loss is confirmed. Australia won this series in Perth but we've had to endure another two matches, the team having to offer themselves up for further humiliation as losers. It's a cruel game. In boxing the referee steps in to stop the fight to prevent further and unnecessary punishment. It's a pity the umpires don't have that prerogative in cricket!