THE GOOGLY: Cricket doesn't need to jump on World Cup bandwagon

HUW TURBERVILL: Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the World Cup. This seems to be an England team to be proud of. But we don’t have to keep jumping on the football bandwagon in everything, do we?

I’m sorry. Sorry to the good folk at Middlesex, including Angus Fraser and Dawid Malan, who are top blokes. Sorry to genial press officer Steven Fletcher, one of the best in the business. Sorry to those fans who thought this was a good wheeze. Sorry to everyone who reads this, and thinks I am a grumpus. 

But what were Middlesex’s cricketers thinking of, wearing England football kit in the warm-ups last night?

Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the World Cup. This seems to be an England team to be proud of. I am looking forward to a barbie on Saturday, ahead of the 3pm kick-off with Sweden. Even the most ardent cricket fan has to concede the football World Cup galvanises this nation (like the Ashes did it in 1981 and 2005).

But we don’t have to keep jumping on the football bandwagon in everything, do we?

Radio 5 live’s Formula One show last night had F1 people talking about… football, and 'coming home'. Politicians were talking about it on Question Time. Kyle Edmund practised at Wimbledon in an England football shirt.

Everyone’s at it!

Thursday night at Lord’s was a special night. A special cricket night. Middlesex v Surrey. The start of the T20 Blast. A full house. Magnificent. A lot of Premier League football fans would be proud of that. The hosts won a decent contest by three wickets with an over to spare. Once football had been forgotten, the cricket was very good, the atmosphere was splendid.

^{Middlesex having a kick about ahead of their T20 Blast clash with Surrey at Lord's}

This is good sport in its own right. A grand occasion. Something to be proud of.

Yet Middlesex cricketers “got right into the spirit of the Fifa World Cup as they embraced the feeling of the nation, donning England’s new Nike kit for their pre-match football warm-ups,” we are told.

“The entire Vitality Blast squad got changed into the England home and away strip and went head to head in their warm-up routine, before posing for a squad photo in England kit on the Nursery Ground at Lord’s.

“In a change to their normal protocol the side then walked out at the most famous cricket ground in the world to the sound of the UK’s current No.1 song ‘Three Lions’ (an admittedly fine tune) pumping out of the in-ground speakers as the packed stands burst into chants of ‘football’s coming home’!”

I am sorry (again) but this is wrong.

I would have preferred Middlesex cricketers walking out in Middlesex cricket kit, in front of 27,259 fans, at the home of cricket, ‘I don’t like cricket, I love it’ playing over the speakers (yes I know Nike provide kit for both teams and you can see why it was a good thing for them).

Yes football is a great game (even if the players are generally overpaid, a lot of them dive too much, and the fans can get overly tribal and nasty).

But cricket is a better game. And can 'come home' in its own right.