THEY say that cricket, our national summer game – at least in the fortnight or so that participants of “the beautiful game” (see foot of column) change their boots for a new season – is mystifying to foreigners. I say ditto about the Tour de France, cycling’s greatest showcase, the world biggest sporting event.

Glued to the TV for its Stage One in Yorkshire, initially to spot familiar, well-loved places, but increasingly to marvel at the extent and enthusiasm of the crowds, the “race” struck me as being more like a bunch of blokes simply going out for a ride together, albeit faster than in your classic Edwardian cycling club outing, and deciding at the end to have a sprint finish.

If they’d raced each other from the start of the stage’s 190.5 kilometres, by the end, they would have been strung out sufficiently to avoid the pile-up that put Mark Cavendish out of the race and could have had worse consequences.

But, of course, the Tour is a team event.

And yet one from which an individual winner emerges. Strange – as though a Man-ofthe- Match at cricket is the winner of the game. Since team riders in the Tour are all helping each other in one way or another, shouldn’t it be a team that wins? And oh, alongside the day’s winner of the yellow jersey come others who collect a green jersey and a spotted jersey – all somehow competed for as the peloton sweeps along. Baffling.

No matter. The real winner, as everyone agrees, was the Yorkshire countryside, which looked its very best. No windfarms, no industrial estates, no retail parks. Just lush farmland and wild upland. Shown to perfection under a blue sky with fleecy white clouds, its beauty compelled the thought that this must be safeguarded at all costs – against lunacies like allowing field barns to become homes, and housing developments swamping small villages. Even apparently small things like too much roadside advertising.

But ousting that thought was day’s biggest mystery, voiced by an ITV commentator.

How had the crowds got to the remote places like the summits of the Buttertubs and Grinton Moor? Unseen, the mass uphill tramp must have been as impressive as the speeding peloton.

AND so to cricket. This is as little understood by the Bank of England’s Canadian chairman, Mark Carney, that he scrapped the bank’s annual cricket match, traditionally the centrepiece of the bank’s summer staff party. Reportedly, Mr Carney considers cricket “too elitist.”

In fact, few games cross class boundaries more than cricket. Village Cricket, by Gerald Bullett, includes the lines: Bricklayer bowls a perfect length.

Grocery snicks and steals a run.

Law, swiping with all his strength, Is caught by Chemist at mid on.

Lord of the manor makes thirty-four.

Parson contributes, smooth and trim… Not only do Bricklayer and Lord of the Manor share hours on the field, they must rub along in and around the pavilion.

Bullet concludes that through its democratic mix, cricket weaves “a pattern of hardy perennial civilisation.”

And though he doesn’t say so, it is also cricket that is “the beautiful game.”