Gentlemen of the cricketing media

In the distance, a jet airliner dips serenely towards a city airport.

Closer and lower, gulls wheel and cry. And beneath them a perfect, smooth-edged field of immaculately mown grass shimmers in the heat.

It’s a scene that can be found in many countries, but it appears mainly in the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and, alone in a cooler part of the world where a beautiful summer’s day is not to be taken for granted, England.

Because these are the blessed places on earth where top level cricket is played.

There is nothing quite so sophisticated as a cricket match, and for all the skullduggery of the professional sportsman, for all the profanity of the drink-fuelled crowds, the five days of a test match do more for world peace and harmony than a dozen G20 summits. If only the USA, Russia, Syria, Iraq and North Korea played cricket, we could all sleep more easily. The world of test cricket is a world of gentlemen (not some of the players, obviously).

It’s a gathering of kindred spirits in which mutual respect is demanded and happily given.

And surveying it all from a lofty position high in the stands sits a multinational nucleus of knowledgeable, experienced, articulate men and women who may or may not know they have the best job in the world.

Cricket commentators have often had no formal training for the role. They are former professional players or perhaps journalists who played at a decent amateur level in their youth and have talked their way into a life of leisurely travel, following the sun around the world and broadcasting to those of us who languish at home, at work or even on holiday and cannot be among the few thousand supporters in the stadium that is currently the focus of global attention.

Oddly, even in the countries where it is a national sport, cricket doesn’t attract large crowds at grass roots or even national level.

It’s only international matches and trumped-up commercial leagues that get people through the gates. Walk into a national stadium when Trinidad and Tobago are playing one of the other West Indian nations and you are not going to have much trouble finding a seat. Stroll off the seafront at Hove on the south coast of England into the ground where Sussex are entertaining Yorkshire and your only companions are likely to be one man and his dog.

Even in traditionally fanatical India the fans’ attention span has dwindled and it is the dumbed down version, T20, all over in a couple of hours, that is the most popular. And they’ve created the Indian Premier League, where superstars from around the world play wham bam thank you ma’am, not for their country but for themselves, under a franchise flag that represents nothing more than where the bank transfer is going to come from.

The five-day game, though, is the one beloved of the purists.

Whatever your thoughts about the British empire – and I would like to think they are mellowing, as it ended a long time ago now – it did bring to the world a sport based on civilisation, one that involves the brain as much as the muscles, and which can be discussed by people from all backgrounds and heritages. It’s a sport where you can watch a man (and increasingly a woman) grow in maturity, from raw talent to top professional and, cruising back to earth like one of those airliners, on to elder statesman and wise pundit.

What other arena could have transformed a mean, powerful, monosyllabic giant into Sir Curtly Ambrose, a knight of the realm following in the footsteps of Constantine, Sobers and Richards? And now Sir Curtly even deigns to give us an opinion now and then.

The world mourned the passing of the avuncular Barbadian Tony Cozier just as it did his Australian equivalent, Richie Benaud, and English legends like Brian Johnston and John Arlott.

Now, as the poshest of them all, Henry Blofeld, prepares to hang up his blazer, it’s time to enjoy the new breed’s views on pigeons, cakes sent in by listeners and what kind of bowler Angela Merkel would make. And that new breed includes women.

Nowadays the commentary box benefits from the extra touch of civilisation that the presence of a woman brings, with Donna Symmonds blazing the trail in these parts while Isa Guha and Alison Mitchell josh with the gents in the UK. Many of the most famous commentators went on working to a great age, so maybe if I get my application in now, there is still time.

After all, I know a bit about it, I’m free to travel and I can eat chocolate cake with the best of them.