Battle for cricket’s future has already been won but Tests can still retain their shine

So what did you do during the great English Cricket Culture Wars? Did you set up a burner Twitter account and start spamming George Dobell? Did you start a furious argument about state schools and free-to-air television with a man who lists his interests as “Wife – Manchester Originals – UFC – but not necessarily in that order!!!!”? Did you share a video of Alice Capsey just doing Alice Capsey things?

Alternatively it is entirely possible that you have no idea what any of the last paragraph was about, in which case you enjoy not simply my admiration but my deepest envy. English cricket is, after all, a much bigger and less tribal place than it occasionally appears from the cesspits and panic rooms of the internet, where two people with an existing grudge and a migraine can propel an issue to the top of the agenda simply by screaming at each other for a few hours.

Even so, you did not have to be online over the past couple of weeks to sense the angst and disquiet that appears to grip English cricket whenever it goes through a period of flux. The new 2023-27 men’s future tours programme has just been published, with virtually no international cricket scheduled between March and June in order to accommodate the Indian Premier League. Two new overseas Twenty20 tournaments have been announced in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The Hundred is happening in front of bumper crowds.

England’s men lost a Test match. Andrew Strauss is about to take a knife to the County Championship. Jimmy Anderson is old.

Naturally all this has to mean something and, because the prevailing mood of English cricket fans has always been a kind of pre-emptive nostalgia — a lament for things that still exist — the events of the past few weeks