A FLICKERING FLAME...

Amongst all the incessant publicity and reporting of events in the world of football - and especially our old friend the Premier League - it has all but gone unnoticed that another cricket season is drawing to a close.   This year, the glorious anachronism that is county championship cricket has been eclipsed not only by the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the madness of the transfer window and the restrained and modest antics of  managers and players alike, but also by the Test matches against Sri Lanka and India as well as the biff bash 20-20 competition and all the other distractions from the true home of the game.  

I guess county cricket must be used to it by now, but it always seems a pity that a season of hard slog, which still has much to offer before it finally ends, is almost totally ignored.   Yorkshire won their first championship in many a year;  the county I follow - Hampshire -  are still locked in a promotion battle from Division 2 and struggled to hold out yesterday against Kent, who amassed the grand total of 507 in their first innings at the Rose Bowl.   Promotion for Hampshire is tantalisingly close but if they fail to take the points they need in the last game against Glamorgan next week, then the spoils will go to Essex.

So there`s still much to play for and in the meantime a quite outstanding performance on Thursday by Durham bowler Chris Rushworth has warranted scant coverage in the sports pages.   In a record breaking day, Rushworth took 15 wickets for Durham - nine in the first innings and six in the second - in their crushing victory over hapless Northants; an achievement that in another age would rank alongside those of Laker, Barnes, Verity and other heroes of those golden days long ago.

The dying embers of another season are upon us and, like the passing of summer, it is always a moment for regret.  Especially so as achievements such as Rushworth`s are buried away in small corners of newsprint and denied the attention they deserve, which merely confirms that the once bright flame of cricket in its truest form is indeed flickering away towards an uncertain future.

In this frantic, demanding world of instant success and gratification it seems that there is little place for the comforting assurance offered by the county grounds of England and where performances like Chris Rushworth`s go largely unrecognised beyond the boundary.