Cricket to many is not merely a game, it is a passion. Its more than just the endlessly fascinating battle between bat and ball, it’s one of the few sports where wit and guile can negate physical prowess and where you have time to laugh, talk and enjoy the company of your team-mates and opposition during the game.

 

 Like many things it is easy to romanticise the sunny days, the big wins and the long laughs whilst conveniently forgetting the days of golden ducks, endless rain and dubious officiating. For all that we love it in our hearts we know that Cricket isn’t perfect.

 

 Slow over-rates frustrate, bowlers being no-balled due to over stepping by a millimetre annoys but surely the greatest bugbear is the uneasy relationship the game enjoys with alcohol.

 

 The stark truth is that Cricket needs beer, more accurately Cricket needs the revenue that alcohol brings, not just in sponsorship but with money taken over the bar in clubs up and down the land. Our Sport is an expensive one to maintain and alcohol sales help keep it viable at all levels from Test Match downwards

 

 If alcohol brings the benefit of money into the game its down side is all too audible. How many times have you been to watch either Leicestershire or England at Lords, or elsewhere, and had your day spoilt by some dis-placed football fans who seem to see Cricket as an excuse for an all day lager session and a severe case of sunburn.

 

 It would be easy to give the impression of a killjoy but that is not the intention. No-one (except perhaps the stuffed shirts at Lords) are suggesting the game should be viewed in silence, indeed some of the best moments in a match are those when the crowd are roaring their heroes on, but those moments should be initiated by the action on the park. Nothing to do with eight pints of ‘Special Brew’ and the moronic chanting of ‘Barmy Army’ during the later sessions of play.

 

 It’s sad that the game in itself is not an attraction enough for some to want to come along, perhaps with the exception of the popular 20/20 slogfest in the height of summer. For some the game will always be too slow, takes too long and all the other traditional criticisms levelled at it. It’s a perpetual source of frustration though that not enough can appreciate the subtle nuances, skill and application that our game displays in abundance. I have no doubt that the Fancied Dressed Drunken masses on the Western Terrace at Headingley claim to have a good day out but I can get drunk at anytime during the year. On a sunny afternoon in a beautiful setting though there surely has to be better ways to travel.