Nice try madam but no cigar

"Indignation is the highest form of love," So wrote George Sand, the French all-rounder, more than 100 years ago. It is a beautiful phrase and has the additional value of being true. We do not care for those people and things whose fate leaves us indifferent; we care for that which moves us. It is something those who administer English cricket would do well to ponder.

That thought occurred last week when it became pleasingly clear that, so far as the people high up in the game are concerned, Henderson of the Telegraph is regarded as public enemy No 1. What a badge of honour! I shall wear it with pride, in the knowledge that, so long as it is pinned to my chest, I must be getting some things right.

They are not such a difficult lot to annoy and, however much I would like to claim it, there is no exclusivity in my recent criticism, general or particular, of England's cricketers. But in the Telegraph! That's "our" paper. Who does this chap think he is? Well, one thing he is not is a cipher for the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Almost every observer responded to the team selection for Old Trafford with bafflement, and to the subsequent performance with scorn, though it is quite true that only one person called for Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting to stand down before the game. The fact that they were sacked afterwards echoed the call that appeared in this column two weeks ago.

Almost every observer, note. There has been one notable exception, a man with a good name, a deep love of cricket and a reluctance to upset anybody who plays it. Because recent events have demanded stronger words than he feels comfortable with, and because he has been perplexed by the way others have used them, he has come across like the chap in Ballad of a Thin Man: "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr Jones?"

It is a mystery he is in any doubt. The Gooch and Gatting business is such a cinch to explain that it is hard to imagine anybody misunderstanding the story. By selecting Graeme Hick for Old Trafford they were effectively telling the public: "We just don't know what to do." Fair enough. In that case let someone else have a go, who might. With that one pick they signed their own release papers.

The public response to the defeat at Lord's and the rain-assisted draw in Manchester has been unmistakable. Clearly, though, there are still a few pockets of doubt. So my thanks go, as Cyril Fletcher used to say, to Miss Davison, of Horsham, for her bracing letter, which is worth quoting in part, if only to present a more charitable view of proceedings.

Miss Davison doesn't like what has been written about our cricketers. Indeed, she goes a good deal further than that. "English players," she writes, "courtesy of the media, are reared in a culture of abuse, vilification and criticism - how on earth is this supposed to inspire the next generation?"

Nice try, madam - but no cigar. The first thing to consider is the identity of some of those abusers, men who, it goes without saying, know next to nothing about the game. Ted Dexter, in a brilliant piece in this paper last week, scrutinised the technical deficiencies of batsmen who cannot even pick up the bat properly. E W Swanton, who has been watching cricket for 80 years, has admitted that he never left Lord's as heart-sick as he did on the Saturday of this year's Test.

In the ideal world of this lady's dreams, England players would probably wake up to admire supportive articles in the public prints, and go out full of vim to make hundreds and take wickets by the barrel-load. But it doesn't work like that. Journalists are not cheerleaders. We do not bump up players just to make them feel happy. We try to tell the truth, by our lights.

A friend rang up after the last Test, dismayed at what he had seen on the box. Robert Tear is a distinguished tenor who sang at the first night of this year's Proms and was recently in Munich, performing in Richard Strauss's Elektra. "I turned up at 10 o'clock for a rehearsal and at seven minutes past - I checked my watch - that was it. I hadn't sung the role for two years, and I hadn't met any of the other singers, which would have been nice. That night, when I walked on stage, I nearly fell into the orchestra pit."

Yet he didn't. He sang the role like the trouper he is because, for the last 40 years, he has repeatedly refined his art through hours, days, months of serious practice. That is what being a performer means and, as he said: "It gets harder, love, not easier." If he made as many errors in a night's work as some England players have done this summer he would never set foot on another stage.

It was instructive to think of his story when recalling how an England batsman, knocking up in Manchester, stood at the crease like a first-time skier at the top of a slope, knees locked into a snowplough. How can a young man who has come through school, club and county to Test cricket look so untutored? No amount of support from a pack of scribblers is ever going to help him amend his technique.

However much it may surprise some people, those who follow the England side for a living take no delight in their never-ending struggle. The human instinct is to wish them well but that does not mean writing favourable things when they do not. Journalists cannot ever see the team in the first person plural, nor would the players thank us if we did.

Like shipwrecked sailors dreaming of passing vessels, we scribes see, in our idle moments, English batsmen flaying opponents to all parts, and bowlers ripping out stumps. When England go to the Oval this week it would be a boon to report on a home victory. But, for the time being, you must forgive this observer if he remains indignant. It is the price of his love for the game.