By all accounts every child in England now owns a spanking new Woodworm and will be committing the rest of their natural lives to playing cricket. The future of the game is assured because…. of England’s Ashes Heroes! Hurrah.

What tosh! I bought a tennis racquet when Jimmy Connors first won Wimbledon and it was used for about 30 minutes before my stack of Woolworth tennis balls disappeared over Mrs Grimshaw’s fence. (Maybe if she hadn’t been such a Rottweiler I would have dared retrieve them and emerged into a Federer.)

The point is, that as captivating as the ashes have been, the event on its own is not enough to sustain interest in any sport at grass roots level. It may ignite the fire but the fuels of infrastructure, investment, and initiative are all required to give growth a chance of sustainability.

We are seeing a global trend of divergence in sport. I write this from New Zealand where the Kiwi’s historically exclusive infatuation with Rugby Union is diluting to the point where the oval ball is in genuine competition with soccer, as they call it here.

The States have embraced soccer since they hosted the world cup and what was once ranked as the 104th most popular sport in the USA now has a professional league of merit, a national team capable of very good performances and tellingly is emerging as the most popular after school activity with children of both sexes.

So, sports do clearly change rankings in playing popularity, however this is often due less to the success of a particular nation at the elite level and more a reflection of a concerted effort to bring that sport into the classrooms and broaden the availability of playing the game at a competitive and well structured grass roots level.

For all the political mileage New Labour will be gaining off the back of this tremendous ashes victory, the best repayment would be to reverse the trend of selling off school fields and get cricket back on the sporting curriculum.