Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez skirmish highlights one inherent difference between cricket and football

HUW TURBERVILL: Cricketers have had to put up with far more when it comes to operating in close quarters. Sharing of information is part and parcel of the sport

Thank goodness I’m (mainly) a cricket fan. That’s what I thought when I read about Raheem Sterling’s reported lunge at Joe Gomez while lunching with England’s football team.

Sterling had the hump after Manchester City had been denied victory at Liverpool in controversial circumstances. Being insulted for 94 minutes by the fans who used to adore him didn’t help.

If footballers cannot compartmentalise their club allegiances while representing their country, if the stakes are just too great with weekly wages hitting £350,000, is it time to scrap international football altogether?

Hardly anyone I know has been watching these Euro 2020 qualifiers. They are unwelcome dykes in the flow of domestic football. 

The four international weekends delay the end of the season until mid-May. When you add club and international finals into the equation, and then the resumption of hostilities in August, dear old cricket hardly has room to breathe.

There was also the admission by Rio Ferdinand that club rivalries killed the chances of the national team winning anything during its ‘golden generation’. “I didn't really want to engage with them," said the former defender, who was capped 81 times by his country.

^{Physical confrontations on a cricket field are rare occurrences}

That’s a pretty sad state of affairs. It’s a game lads.

The concept that people could fight each other because they play for different clubs has to be completely laughable to England cricketers, doesn’t it?

The thought of Tom Banton clashing with James Vince during the T20 international series in New Zealand because he was upset at Somerset’s crucial defeat to Hampshire in the County Championship in September is ludicrous.

The difference is that club football is the pinnacle now by far, whereas it is the opposite with cricket. Cricketers are with their countries most of the time. County appearances, thanks to central contracts, are rare. Would Joe Root not talk to Ben Stokes for fear of giving the Durham ace some crucial advantage the next time he faces Yorkshire? One suspects not.

Cricketers have had to put up with far more than footballers when it comes to tours. Imagine sharing a room with a snoring Eddie Hemmings or Derek Randall for six months!

^{Kevin Pietersen's exit from Nottinghamshire was preceded by his kit being thrown from the dressing room} 

That is not to say cricketers do not have spats.

Jason Gallian and Jonathan Agnew threw the kitbags of Kevin Pietersen and Phil DeFreitas over the dressing-room balconies at Trent Bridge and Grace Road respectively – the latter incident thanks to a salt-cellar prank.

There have also been lots of cricketers suspended like Sterling for bad behaviour. Fred Trueman was not deployed overseas for five years after various incidents on the 1953/54 West Indies tour.

And John Snow was nearly sent home during the triumphant 1970/71 tour to Australia. He had bowled 52.3 eight-ball overs in the first Test, but ahead of the second Test was forced to practise in the nets by tour manager David Clark. He bowled a couple of half-hearted overs and received a dressing-down. Snow said: “As far as my good conduct money was concerned he could swallow it.” He was not seen again until the following day. 

Fortunately, that shrewd man-manager Ray Illingworth stepped in. “Snowy, if you weren’t an intelligent bloke, you’d now be on the boat home,” Illingworth told him. After that, they were “right as rain”. Thank goodness… he took 31 wickets in a famous 2-0 Test series win.

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