SOCIALIST UNITY

Sometimes the world makes little sense.

Having not only been beaten but convincingly beaten in the test series, England are giving South Africa a thrashing in the one day International series, including a ten wicket rout at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.

At one level it seems a bit odd, because Michael Vaughan was in my view an excellent captain, but replacing him with the Roy of the Rovers figure of Kevin Pieterson as captain has galvanised the team, and Pieterson’s performance in the first ODI in particular was remarkable - building the winning batting partnership with Flintoff, and stepping in as a bowler to take a crucial wicket at exactly the right time.

I think it is because having been soundly beaten in the first four tests of the series, very little was expected from England in the last test or the ODIs, despite the innate ability of the team they were written off as under-acheivers. Strangely defeat lifted a weight of responsibility from their shoulders, and Pieterson’s style of leadership, of taking responsibility and leading from the front just matches their current mood. You can certainly see from Flintoff for example, that he is playing in a carefree manner, and his cricket is all the better for it.

The perenial problem for England teams, in whatever sport, is that too much is expected of them, and they fail to bear the pressure. This is partly the burden of the tabloid press, but I also think it is related to the fact that sports’s patriotism is too important for England. It is all we have. And the England cricket team is in many ways exemplary of modern England, multi-racial and devoid of the class snobbery of previous eras - we even have an African immigrant as captain!

Incidently, the idiot idea of Gordon Brown’s that Britain should enter a football team for the 2012 olympics shows how out of touch he is with public opinion. As Plaid AM, Bethen Jenkins has pointed out, “This could well threaten the Welsh FA, and the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter has on more than one occasion said that if the UK fields a team at the Olympics, then football associations across the world will ask why there cannot be a single team for the UK at all competitions”

In his desire to prop up the Union at any cost and promote “Britishness”, Gordon Brown is in danger of destroying the dearly loved national football teams of Wales, Scotland and England. To be quite frank, the political bonds between Scotland and England are weaker than the bonds of loyalty that many English people feel to our football team.