NOW, NOW, WE MUST NOT OFFEND VIEWERS AT HOME...

Of all the innovations that have enhanced the cricketing experience for television viewers in recent times – DRS, Spidercam, and counting how many different positions Shane Warne’s hair weave assumes during the course of a Test match – nothing comes close to the sheer brilliance of the stump microphone.

Just think of the dialogue we’d have missed without it. A succession of England wicketkeepers shouting “bowled!!” to every delivery not actually being drilled for four, or “ooohhh!” whenever an opposition batsmen played a routine forward defensive. There should be a special award – a pair of mounted golden tonsils perhaps – in which case Matt Prior wouldn’t have enough room for them all on a single mantelpiece.

And just occasionally we get to hear a bowler offering helpful advice to the batsman he has just dismissed on the directions back to the pavilion, and how speedily he ought to get there. If you’re a fast bowler, of course, you can often be short of breath at the time, hence the invitation to leave the field being forcibly restricted to just a couple of words.

The irony of Kagiso Rabada ending up – like a careless motorist – with too many points on his licence will not be lost on anyone who’s paid close attention to the career of the bloke he swore at during the Lord’s Test.

Ben Stokes is not averse to addressing an opponent in words of few syllables, and you could argue that he wouldn’t be quite the competitor he is if etiquette required him to ignore the fact that he was in a high-pressure sporting environment, and pretend instead that he was taking afternoon tea at the vicarage.

Stokes clearly didn’t accept the invitation to go forth and procreate personally given the way that, when Rabada struck him on the pads in the second innings, he was halfway back to the pavilion before the umpire’s finger went up. Although you could perhaps argue that poor old sensitive Stokesy didn’t want to be offended by a second invitation to leave the field without delay.

Rabada’s crime was not for swearing, of course, but for swearing close enough to a microphone to have possibly caused offence to someone’s maiden aunt in Stoke Poges. In which case, get rid of the stupid things. The mics, that is, not the maiden aunts. Unless you really think that Jonny Bairstow shouting “keep going lads!” three times an over, or Kamran Akmal chirping “Shabbash, shabbash”, is anything other than a total irritant.

As it happens, one of the first stump microphone matches also resulted in disciplinary action, against Graham Dilley on England’s tour to New Zealand in 1988. Dilley, having seen the umpire turn down his appeal for a low catch in the covers against the Kiwis star batsman Martin Crowe, got through a entire tour’s worth of expletives in about five seconds, and it cost him a £250 fine.

Since then, the microphones have made us privy to any number of on-field conversations that hitherto never made it much further than mid-off, and about one per cent of them have made you think, “Ah, that was interesting”.

The other 99 per cent have been the kind primary school teachers allocated to monitor the mid-morning playground break are used to hearing. As during England’s home Test series against India in 2007 when the stump mic levels were turned up just enough to hear Prior constantly referring to Sree Seesanth as ‘Daniel Racliffe’. The reason? Because he happened to wear glasses.

The TV audience was already doubled up when Prior’s mysterious follow-up – “Cook’s a teetotaller, Belly likes a drink” – had tears rolling down their cheeks. And it’s a fair bet that one or two spleens may have ruptured when an unidentified England close fielder was heard to say: “I’m driving a Porsche Carrera. What’s your car?”

Television, having forked out large sums of money for the ECB or the ICC to allow them pretty much any latitude they care to take, currently has an obsessive urge to frame the players in glorious close-up, either visually or verbally. Which is why, whenever the camera pans round to the players’ balcony, someone will be struck by a subliminal urge to stick a finger up his nose and begin surgically removing the contents.

In fairness, there are also times when it enhances the viewing experience, and it’s usually informative, and often entertaining, when one of the on-field players in a one-day game is hooked up with a microphone to give his

Rabada’s crime was to swear close enough to a microphone to have possibly caused offence to someone’s maiden aunt in Stoke Poges

views, quite often in the heat of a close battle.

This doesn’t happen (yet) in Test matches, as the telly people have clearly decided that anyone who goes to a Test match must have some understanding of what they’re watching. Which doesn’t appear to be the case when the cameras are at, say, a T20 game.

In this case it is assumed that the spectators are so dim they’re not even aware of the regulation which states that a ball clearing the boundary without bouncing counts as six runs.

Hence the home ground authority is obliged to ensure that the large electronic screen is illuminated by the number ‘6’, accompanied by several exclamation marks.

And just in case the T20 spectator has not yet twigged that a “6!!!” is very exciting, groups of scantily clad girls jump up and down twirling pom poms, occasionally accompanied by flamethrowers being ignited around the boundary. Cue jumping up and down in the crowd, cameras honing in to capture people jumping up and down, and people jumping up and down then spotting themselves jumping up and down on the big screen making them jump up and down even more. Pretty clever marketing, you’ve got to admit.

As for Test cricket, it’s lagging so far behind with this kind of thing that the latest idea involving spectator interaction is allowing the third umpire’s DRS deliberations to be carried live over the speakers. And who can honestly claim, hand on heart, that they weren’t completely on the edge of their seats during the Lord’s Test?

“Okay, a fair delivery. Could you let me have ultra edge please? Yes, no bat involved. Okay, can we go to ball tracking now? Pitching in line, Wickets hitting. Umpire’s call. Okay Rod, you’re on screen now……”

Forget Horlicks. I think we’ve just found the cure for insomnia.