Cricket can’t be meaningless if there is always glory to chase

Context is what makes sport great and it is also what makes for great sport.

It also gives meaning to something George Orwell once described as ‘War minus the shooting,’ which becomes increasingly important as more and more things scrap for time and attention in people’s lives.

But does sport, and in this instance cricket, always need this extra dimension to be enjoyed?

I ask only because both the Test series which have taken place this summer, and the recently concluded Hundred competition, have both lacked context, albeit for different reasons, yet they both appear to have satisfied supporters and commercial stakeholders.

In the Tests, England’s Bazball heroics against New Zealand and India, and now South Africa, have lacked the relevance of counting towards the final of the 2023 World Test Championship, itself created to give Test cricket context.

England are just too far behind the leading teams to be contenders. Yet they have notched up some notable scalps this season and will add another should they beat South Africa in the final Test beginning tomorrow at the Oval.

Victory against Dean Elgar’s team, currently at the top of the Test table, will cap a remarkable turnaround for an England side mired in mediocrity seven months ago. Not only that but the feat has been achieved with verve and style – the ultra-positive philosophy of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum having the twin effect of restoring faith in the team but also revivifying the Test brand.

Does it really matter, then, that it counts for little except glory? Probably not. Before the World Test Championship all Tests were bilateral affairs whose prize was one-upmanship, at least until the next series between the teams, a back and forth which, in