Why no cricketing identity for Wales?

CONGRATULATIONS to Scotland on their splendid win over the England cricket team at the weekend.

I am not a fan of cricket but as a patriotic Welshman I am at a loss to understand how it is that England, Scotland and Ireland have national cricket teams competing at international level and in the cricket World Cup, whereas Wales does not.

Wales, I am told, does not exist as far as cricket is concerned. Apparently, we are amalgamated with England and the team that lost to Scotland was really “England and Wales”. That was news to me and to every newspaper and TV bulletin that reported the match. Not one mentioned the “Welsh” connection.

I have since been told that Wales derives great benefits from the amalgamation with England. Millions have been spent on Sophia Gardens so that England (sorry, England and Wales) can play the occasional Test match there.

I wish someone would tell me what other benefits Wales derives, because if they are so obvious why are the WRU and the FAW so blinkered and nationalistic as to insist on playing as “Wales”? Should they not throw in their lot with England at Twickenham and Wembley? We could then return to what the Encyclopedia Britannica once used to say about us: “For ‘Wales’, see ‘England’.”

Gerwyn Morgan Beulah, Newcastle Emlyn