The Irreverent View emerges from a bleak few weeks for English cricket clinging to the hope of - maybe, just maybe - enjoying the summer's Tests against New Zealand and Australia...
There was a great moment on the cricket coverage on Sunday. The television camera zoomed in on a kid in the crowd in the Tavern Stand right near where Ben Stokes had just hit the second of his two sixes in as many balls. The boy looked absolutely beside himself with the fun and excitement of it all. It was not a look we have been seeing too much of where England are concerned over the last 18 months.
Whatever else happens this summer, Stokes's century in 85 balls reminded us all, young and old alike, of the point of playing and watching. On the purest, most elemental level, it should be fun. Not about data, or chief executives, or Twitter spats or contract disputes, but fun. The simple fun of someone whacking a ball. It was the most enjoyable innings I've seen an England cricketer play in years. It might also turn out to be the most important.
Following the England cricket team since the last Ashes hasn't been much in the way of laughs, between the 5-0 whitewash in the Ashes to a typically anaemic and utterly predictable failure at the World Cup. An array of men in blazers have popped up from time to time to make you grind your teeth. Lowlights have included Giles Clarke saying that "Alastair Cook and his family are very much the sort of people we want the England captain to be", as if coming from a suitable school were more important than hitting or catching cricket balls.
There was the shoddy treatment of Peter Moores, whose dismissal was trailed in the press while the team were in the middle of a match against Ireland, despite the man himself not even being relieved of his duties until a couple of days later. Key players retired, either physically broken (Graeme Swann) by the hamster wheel of fixtures that the team plays to satisfy their TV paymasters, or mentally worn down by the pressures (Jonathan Trott).
"We lost that feeling for a long while, thanks to results and the grim reliance on fitness and data" Alan Tyers
And, of course, there was the Kevin Pietersen farrago - Piers Morgan's guerrilla campaign on social media, the Pietermaritzburg Popinjay apparently being told that there was a clean slate, scoring 355 not out in a county match and then being told that he wouldn't be allowed in due to "a massive trust issue", the coup de grace delivered by Andrew Strauss, the man who had once accidentally let slip his true thoughts about KP via an open mic on TV. England's dedicated data crunchers and analysts fed all of the above into a machine and the outputs were clear: this is just a rubbish time to be involved in England cricket.
One swallow might not make a summer, but in the hitting of Ben Stokes, we once again enjoyed and gloried in an England team. It was great to see Joe Root on the balcony, cheekily saluting his mate in homage to the Marlon Samuels send-off incident, but also demonstrating that this is a group of talented young players who want to enjoy their cricket, support their mates and have fun while winning. We lost that feeling for a long while, thanks to results and the grim reliance on fitness and data. During their many dark days of late, England cricketers have been wheeled out in front of the media to say "we're not a bad team... working hard... a lot of good players in that dressing room... looking to put it in good areas... want to do the simple things well..."
For once, England remembered how to do the simple things well. Hit the ball. Put it in a good area: the stands at midwicket. If that young lad in the crowd was watching his first cricket match, he must have thought "this game looks really fun, and really simple." Ben Stokes reminded us all that, if you let it, sometimes it can be.