The Bob Marley Test

Sod the Tebbit Test. Take the Bob Marley Test. How many Brits out there were rooting for Shivnarine Chanderpaul to prod and plod for another two hours? I know I was, and I can think of at least two and threequarter London-based friends who feel similarly disloyal to St George. I know this because I asked them the same question last week while the man with the sponsored eye-bags was threatening to pull off the greatest chase in Test annals. The final score was two “absolutelys” to one “almost”.

They were all too aware of that unpalatable but rapidly encroaching truth: cricket with an uninspiring, passionless West Indies is akin to soccer blighted by a charmless, defensive-minded Brazil – a sport incapable of fulfilling its potential. Now he knows how much he is missed (as if he needed any reminder), will Brian Lara’s hints at the speediest unretirement since Frank Sinatra bear fruit? Let’s hope so. For all his selfishness and untold other flaws, his countries need him. They are certainly not better off without him, as their selectors calculated. Nor is cricket.