It is difficult to understand what the English and Australian cricket authorities were thinking when the decision was made to schedule back-to-back Ashes series. The current series draws to a close this week at its traditional venue for the last Test. The Kennington Oval has witnessed the final Ashes Test for many years and this week bids farewell to one of the least memorable series for many years.
When Stuart Broad chose not to walk when clearly out in the First Test, I wrote of the negative impact on the game. Since then, he has sought to rub yet more salt in to the already inflamed wound by saying he has no regrets. Sometimes it is better to leave well alone and hold your tongue. Stuart doesn't seem very well advised in this area and the cost will be paid this winter.
Because the authorities have chosen to have another Ashes series so soon after this one, the memory of his bad sportsmanship will be very fresh in the minds of our Australian cousins and they will remind him of his words periodically. If ever words will come back to haunt a player, these will. The late Tony Greig once boasted that the would make the West Indians grovel at a time when their fast bowling department demanded large supplies of immodium for English batsmen. The Whitewash was duly delivered and Greig had those words served up to him for the rest of his days. Greig's error was to use bravado despite advice to the contrary. Broad's error was to cheat and then pronounce his pride in doing so. This is a real pity because his bowling performance in the last Test match was truly brilliant. Sadly, this performance will now take second place to his lack of sportsmanship in the First Test. There would be a certain justice to all this if the Australians were to win this week's Test. In truth, the 3-0 scoreline thus far hardly does them justice. They have been much better than that and but for the rain in Manchester would have broken their duck by now. They were also very unlucky early on so they could easily be going in to the final Test at 2-2. They are where they are though and must now seek to let their cricket do the talking. They have been steadily improving recently and but for the new consistency of Ian Bell, England's batting has displayed all the sturdiness of balsa wood up to now.
To guard against the inevitable ill feelings which have now festered since June, the authorities would have been well advised to cancel this winter's Ashes and revert to two-yearly series. It is scandalous that the English authorities choose to support Broad in all of this. This reflects well on nobody and they ought to have nipped this in the bud before now. To endorse cheating is to give a thumbs up to our young cricketers to behave as they like. Our reputation for upholding the spirit of the game is being poured down the drain by a generation of overpaid brats.
Talk this morning continues regarding the impending move of The Welsh football player Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. At £80 million, the purported fee amounts to about 7.5% of the total NHS budget for North Wales.
Perhaps I'm stuck in a middle aged time warp but I just can't make any sense of this. As good a player as he might be, there seems an obscenity here which just won't go away. When the NHS is so desperate for financial input just to keep its head above water, all around it seems to be swimming in a sea of madness. The head of the Royal College of General Practitioners last night condemned plans for free health checks for the over 40s as being a waste of money. Seeking to justify her view, she went on to claim that the money would be better spent treating those in need. If she could just remove her blinkers, she would surely see the merit of identifying a problem before it gets out of control. Its far better to identify somebody with high blood pressure than wait until they land up on a stroke or heart attack unit. I would have thought this common sense. Fire fighting is all very well but never addresses the root cause of a problem. A little money invested now will save a lot more in the future. It is worrying to here the leader of the Royal College speaking in such terms.
Last year, our population in the UK grew by a net 400,000. I am only surprised that such a huge figure is not being more widely reported. The consequences of this trend are obvious. While it is true that people are taking longer to die, the fact is that more more and more babies are being born. Just over 20% were born to parents not born in the UK. This means that our multi cultural society is about to become even more so. The scarcity of jobs we currently face is only likely to get worse in the future as our manufacturing base continues to erode. There are only so many TVs and smart phones which we can buy and sell. The Welfare State as we once knew it is fast becoming a remnant of the past as budgets are tightened to try and pay off our mountainous debts. The NHS is "free at the point of access" in name but the reality is far removed from this. Put simply, the core services underpinning our infrastrucure are at breaking point now. o continue to heap the burden upon them can only end in tears. The future will bring a set of challenges which will need require the attention of a magician. In most parts of the country now, private property rents are now beyond the scope of the many so that a housing crisis is now inevitable. While the sale of council houses in the 1980s introduced a whole new generation to the concept of property ownership, the result is a housing shortage which will inevitably exert even more stress on our already buckling green belt. At this rate, the whole country will be one big housing estate littered with a sprinkling of all conquering supermarkets supplying the foods which sustain the pressure on our struggling NHS. What we really need is wide open spaces where people can think to free up their minds and move to exercise their bodies. We can't stop people having babies and we can't stop the trend of people living longer but there is a middle ground here which nobody seems to want to address. Britain is a small island being swamped by people. As the song goes, "Something's got to give"!
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