Benefits of victory will disappear once England go back behind paywall

An hour after the midsummer madness finished at Lord’s on Sunday night the phone rang. One of our relatives in Yorkshire had something to say. “I couldn’t handle the tension,” announced nine-year-old Amos. “Really, I just wanted it to be over. My hands were so sweaty.” He did not say this as though it were a bad thing. He said it with the zeal of a convert.

“So if someone in the playground tomorrow says: ‘Let’s play cricket,’ would you go for it?” I asked. He thought for a moment. “Yeah. Think I would.”

“This was massive for me,” said his father, James. “I’ve never been able to watch cricket on TV with the boys before.” Even the oldest, Jonah, was born after 2005, when the geniuses at Lord’s decided that their sport was unsuitable for children whose families had priorities other than a Sky subscription. Neither has ever held a bat (except once, briefly, in my garden).

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Stories like this must have been repeated in households up and down the country. The papers were, of course, full of tosh. Taken as a whole, it was certainly not the “greatest game of cricket ever” (The Sun). The climax, however, marked a reversion to those magical moments in cricket when the laws of nature and probability are suspended and witchcraft rules the earth. You couldn’t make it up, you wouldn’t dare.

Such events have grown rarer and, if any have happened since the 2005 Ashes, few people will have noticed. And it would be wonderful to see this as a new beginning: a return to Channel 4; a tears-of-joy reunion with the nation; televised cricket emerging back into the daylight after 14 years’ imprisonment behind the paywall.

But it’s a false dawn. This was a one-off day release on compassionate grounds. There will be a few random, inconsequential funny-format matches to watch somewhere on the BBC next year, but I can’t quite see Jonah and Amos hunting them out. Nor are they likely to watch any live matches in the new divisive and destructive Hundred tournament. It will not be going anywhere near their home town, which is far too remote and obscure to be included. It’s called Sheffield.

In many households cricket’s attempts to reclaim its old territory will have been resisted. This may have been the most crowded sporting day in British history. The British Grand Prix was one issue, though perhaps not a huge one: the drivers go fast and get it over with, and anyway there is little overlap between cricketers and the petrolhead community (Andrew Flintoff excepted). But, you might ask, how on earth did cricket walk straight into a clash with the men’s final at Wimbledon?

The All England Lawn Tennis championships are played every year the same fortnight at the same place. Admittedly, that fortnight was moved back a week in 2015 but that plan was long in the making. You might think cricket would know about it. Strawberries ... Deuce... Advantage, all that stuff.

Maybe not. A few years ago the cricket authorities of England and Australia rearranged their own Test-match cycle to even out the international calendar. Under the original plan, until an emissary from the real world arrived with the news, it would have meant the quadrennial home Ashes series perpetually clashing with the Olympic Games.

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Preliminary figures show 8.3m people watched the climax of the cricket, nearly 60% of them on Channel 4, the rest on three different Sky channels. Millions more would have been watching the victory ceremonies on Centre Court, blissfully unaware of the extraordinary drama taking place a few miles and a click on the remote away. Many of those would have been with the cricket but for this imbecilic clash.

The blame clearly belongs to cricket. The final could easily have been played on the Saturday, when the women’s final would almost have fitted into one of the drinks breaks. (Come to that, it could have been played in June with the tournament halved in length.) And the responsibility must lie with England, as hosts, whose officials obviously have to guide the International Cricket Council about local priorities.

Still, it was a helluva finish and a helluva lot more people saw it than has been possible since the 2005 Ashes. The benefit of that wonderful series turned out to be non-existent, thanks to the paywall. This final was a fantastic advert for what you might call traditional one-day cricket.

Next year what was the 50-over knockout, which used to provide sensational Lord’s climaxes, will have no Lord’s final and will in effect be a second-team competition. England’s chances of ever winning again will be hurt because the stars will be playing the ECB’s silly-sods ersatz cricket. Can anyone explain this to Amos? Or to me?