Pyjamas

Somehow or other, I just can’t see Wally Hammond in a pair of pyjamas – or Dennis Compton, if it comes to that - although both would have been wonderful one-day cricketers had the game been around in their day.

Mind you, in Compton’s case he was, apparently, quite often to be found fast asleep in the dressing room at Lords, shortly before he was due to go in to bat, still dressed in his evening clothes from the previous night out! But pyjamas? Good Lord, no.

I am absolutely sure that the reason we are not doing as well as we ought to at one-day cricket is that the colour just doesn’t suit us. Blue isn’t our colour – anybody could have told them that if they had had the sense to ask. Now, if we persuaded the Aussies to give up their terribly fetching Gold and Green outfits I’ll bet you would see a completely different England altogether. And why shouldn’t we demand that they are made to change their pyjamas? After all, we invented the game, and showed them how to play it, didn’t we - although it does appear that they, and a number of other countries, have picked it up very quickly!

Why can’t we wear white? WG wore white: I wore white (well, off-white actually). What’s that I hear you say? “You can’t see the white ball against white clothes!” OK, I admit that it would make it more difficult for the teams we were playing against, but for goodness sake we need all the help we can get, don’t we?

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