AT LEAST OUR FLOPS HAVE GIVEN PUB TRADE A BOOST

Ah, that’s more like it. The spineless collapse (two in one match even), followed by the customary promises of ‘taking the positives’ and ‘learning from your mistakes’, and summer wouldn’t be summer without the sound of ex players getting stuck into current players. The fall out will go on for a while yet, but the one thing no-one can argue about is that, in the space of a few harrowing days, Joe Root has aged so badly he now looks about 16.

Actually, England were so bad at Trent Bridge that the “taking the positives” count was well down on what we usually get on such occasions, so permit me to introduce an upbeat note on behalf of the team. Namely, that amidst all the recrimination, it has largely gone unnoticed that the lads’ performance in Nottingham has provided a timely shot in the arm for a great British institution.

The pub trade has taken its fair share of knocks in recent years, what with breathalysers, smoking bans, the chancellor trousering so much tax on a pint that landlords can barely make a profit on the froth, and above all, Root’s all-singing-all-dancing England team threatening to rise to the top of the ICC world rankings on a tidal wave of sixes, broken window panes, and Test match scoring rates of 10 an over.

Ask anyone down at the local. You can’t work up much of a thirst if the chaps are giving everyone a jolly good thrashing, as was the case at Lord’s, and the sooner we get back to saloon bar conversations along the more familiar lines of “overpaid plonkers” and “sack the coach”, the sooner we’ll put a halt to the current trend of 20-odd pubs closing in the UK every week.

After Lord’s, your average British publican would have struggled to sell a packet of salt and vinegar crisps over the weekend, as there’d have been no-one there apart from the two old boys engaged in their regular domino game in the corner, managing to make a single pint stretch from six o’clock until chucking out time.

Now, however, the regulars will be flooding back, and clambering into Rooty’s boys with all their familiar gusto.

“Ballance? Mate of the captain’s isn’t he?” “Bairstow? Must have thought it was a Twenty20.” “Dawson? Was that Liam or Les?”

There are few things the English enjoy more than a good old moan when it comes to any of the national sides, although it’s mainly footie and cricket which cranks it up to Victor Meldrew levels. If Brexit, Trump, May, and a female Dr Who have all done their bit to raise decibel levels down at the Ferret and Firkin, nothing quite gets the juices flowing like England’s cricketers performing like the Old Boozonians 2nd XI.

The kind of batting on display at Trent Bridge, can even seep into the subconscious, which perhaps explains why, when Graeme Smith urged England to show a bit more “fight and application” on Test Match Special, it came out as a bit more “fight and abdication.” Or maybe, as a patriotic South African, that’s actually what he meant. The number of experts rounded up to deliver their post-mortems only just stopped short of wheeling out Boris Johnson, Stephen Fry, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the chief complaint appeared to be that there is too much gung ho about this current England team. However, after six months without a Test match the possibility of memory loss cannot be entirely discounted, and you know the writing is on the wall when Stuart Broad forgets to insist upon a DRS referral when the batsman is actually out – as in the case of Hashim Amla. Once he gets back into the swing of this Test match malarkey, Stuart will remember that every ball he bowls demands sending upstairs. The crowd also had a bit of an issue with having to re-train their brains to Test match cricket, and when the England 100 came up in the second innings, they duly clapped. Why? Why do you clap when you’re 100-5 chasing 474? Maybe some psychologist has the answer, but at least there was no further applause, as there presumably would have been had England not already capitulated before reaching another landmark at 150-9. It also had a strange effect in the TMS box. The official scorer, Andrew Samson, can answer almost every cricket question imaginable, from how many times Broad’s fourth ball of an over has been a dot, to what colour underpants WG Grace was wearing when he made his last Test appearance at Trent Bridge in 1899. But when Moeen took 20 balls to get off the mark in the second innings, and Andrew piped up that his previous worst had been 17, you knew that dark forces must have been at work. So what now? How can we get England’s batsmen back to the mindset of a bygone era, when playing out a maiden wasn’t so shameful that you’d never set foot outside the house again without putting on a false beard. Unless you were Moeen, when you’d disguise yourself by shaving it off. Maybe Trevor Bayliss should make his batsmen sit through a recording of Sunday’s play, when South Africa hardly played a shot in anger. The crowd certainly didn’t seem bothered by it. The old-fashioned connoisseur must have thought it wonderful, while all those dressed up as giraffes and doing the conga wouldn’t even have noticed. So, here’s the solution. Recall Geoffrey Boycott to open with Chris Tavare, and by the end of the third day, when England are 78-0 from 270 overs, there’d be none of this talk about irresponsible batting. True, it would be the end for the pub trade, and Test match crowds will be reduced to a couple of nuns and a banana, but desperate times require desperate measures.

Ask anyone down at the local. You can’t work up much of a thirst if the chaps are giving everyone a jolly good thrashing