We are all a bit obsessed by legacies and there has been much talk in recent weeks of Ricky Ponting’s legacy.
Thank you, Kevin Pietersen. You enlivened a somewhat dreary, Flintoff-free summer at a stroke. The stroke christened the ”switch hit”.
At Headingley last week, the West Indies were running out of batsmen: Shivnarine Chanderpaul had withdrawn with tendinitis, and their captain, Ramnaresh Sarwan, had just damaged his shoulder diving over the rope while trying to save a boundary.
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The game has moved on. Whether it is any better is one for the pub. Cast your eyes down the composite team from the first World Cup in 1975 and it is not obvious that the standard of play has advanced in leaps and bounds. There were some handy cricketers around three decades ago. But the game has changed.