Originally published in 2014

Back in 1985, the cricket writer and broadcaster Don Mosey wrote a book called The Best Job in The World. Its 208 pages seem pre-occupied with demonstrating why travelling the world and writing about cricket is anything but. According to the sole review on Amazon (where you can find a second-hand copy for a penny): “Mosey didn’t seem to like most of the places he visited or most of the people he worked with.”

I never met Mosey. Like the majority I knew him only as a plummy voice on Test Match Special who goaded his fellow Yorkshireman Fred Trueman into seeing southern conspiracies on the field of play. Colleagues called him The Alderman for the self-important air that recalled one of JB Priestley’s puffed-up civic heads. And in the book Mosey broke a golden rule of sports writing: never bemoan your fate because the public will have no sympathy.

This doesn’t just apply to the exalted level scaled by Mosey. Covering Nottinghamshire for the local paper 20 years ago I had the temerity to ask the editor for a modest pay rise to bring me in line with the news reporters. “Now look son,” was the gist of the reply. “I could get a queue of people twice round the Market Square to do your job for nothing.”

But it is more exciting than most of Test cricket. Batsmen cannot spend hours in their shell and bowlers have stricter limits on what is a wide. Fielding restrictions check the defensive thoughts of a captain. Time-wasting is futile because ultimately the overs must be bowled. Most of all, the absence of draws guarantees a winner – unless there is a tie, in which case no spectator except the most partisan will ever feel short-changed.

Think of the format as Twenty20 with brains or Test cricket in a day. And give it a chance.