The losing habit
They say the English are the only people who feel schadenfreude about themselves, and anyone who stuck with English cricket through the 1990s will know there is some truth in that. Back then you had to try to find some small measure of pleasure in their losses, which came around with ritual regularity. There was the rollercoaster thrill of their batting collapses, the dizzy lurch of a sudden but inevitable turn for the worse, and the meditative contemplation of their long and fruitless days in the field, watching the opposition’s score tick, the thought of taking the 10th wicket a kind of cricketing koan, as inconceivable as the sound of one hand clapping. Following England, you learned to be good at losing.
You had to, because England lost a lot of Tests, 43 in the 90s. Their win/loss ratio was worse than that of every other Test-playing nation apart from New Zealand, who still beat England in 1999, and Zimbabwe, who drew in the only series they played against England in the decade. Things are different now. Better. Since 2000, England sit third in the win/loss table, behind Australia and South Africa. Cut it down to this current decade, and they rise to second. In among the muddle‑headed fuzz of memories from the final day of the Ashes series at The Oval in 2005, I distinctly recall an embarrassing encounter with a 10‑year‑old attending his very first Test, and my tipsy insistence that he didn’t know how good he had it.
There were hints of all this during the first Test in Bangladesh, especially on the fourth and fifth days, when you could sense once again that a number of England’s supporters wouldn’t have begrudged the home side a well-earned victory. You could hear it on Sky, where Mike Atherton kept asking Athar Ali Khan to explain just how much a win against England would mean, and on Test Match Special, where Dan Norcross took genuine relish in the idea that he might witness a significant bit of cricket history. Which isn’t to say that they or anyone else wanted England to lose, only that they were able to find some consolation in the idea that they might.
Which you might describe as good sportsmanship. But it’s more than that. Some of England’s most significant contributions to cricket have been made by losing games. Test cricket started with an English defeat, at Melbourne in 1877, and progressed with a hastily arranged second Test at the same venue only because the first had proved such a success. “The game was watched with intense excitement by enthusiastic crowds,” reported the Times, “and those who could not get to the ground clustered round the newspaper offices to see the last despatches from the seat of war placarded on the door posts.”
England were without Grace, but took the defeat with more of it than WG ever mustered. Their skipper, James Lillywhite, described Australia’s victory as “a distinction that no Englishman will begrudge them”, his one cavil the worry that “the Australians will ‘blow’ about it for some time to come”. The Melbourne Age said the win was a “crushing reply to those unpatriotic theorists who would have us believe that the Australian race is deteriorating from the Imperial type”. Ever since, maiden victories against England have served as milestones in the development of Test teams, markers by which you can chart the growth of the sport through the 20th century.
The South Africans were next, at the Wanderers in 1906. They had to wait 17 years, and got there, in the end, by inches, when Dave Nourse and Percy Sherwell put on 48 for the 10th wicket. Then the West Indians, quicker with it. It was in the sixth game, at Georgetown in 1930, when George Headley hit 114 in the first innings, and 112 in the second. This win the most resonant yet, coming so soon after Marcus Garvey had formed the People’s Political Party. In Headley, Michael Manley wrote, West Indian fans found “evidence to incorporate into their scheme of self-awareness”, he was “black excellence personified in a white world and in a white sport”.
These victories make men famous. India at the Madras Cricket Club in 1952, a match won by men whose names still ring with glory today, Pankaj Roy, Polly Umrigar, Vinoo Mankad. Pakistan soon after, at the Oval in 1954, Fazal Mahmood the hero. New Zealand at Wellington in 1978, after the longest wait of all, 48 years and 48 Tests after their first, England skittled by Richard Hadlee. And then Sri Lanka in 1993, and a five-for for Muttiah Muralitharan. Zimbabwe haven’t done it yet and, since England have refused to play them these past 13 years, maybe never will. Which leaves Bangladesh.
There is history here. On the one hand, the very first Bangladesh national team fixtures were against a touring side sent out by the MCC in 1976-77. Bangladesh impressed, and were elected to Associate Membership of the ICC soon after. The MCC toured again in 1978-79 and 1980-81 – “thus,” Robin Marlar wrote, England was “indicating its care for cricket worldwide”. But on the other hand the English were the only country to abstain from the vote to elect Bangladesh to Test status in 1999, and have made a point of sending under‑strength sides on tour. There has been aid, and there has also been arrogance.
The eight Tests the two teams had played before this tour were one-sided, the closest of them the very first, England’s seven-wicket win at Dhaka. But the gap is tighter now, only 22 runs wide in Chittagong. And once that first win finally does come, English fans will feel angst, no doubt, but some satisfaction too, because it will mean that the game of Test cricket has grown stronger. Just so long as they don’t make a habit of it, as so many other countries seem to have done.
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