I CAN make this confession today, a couple of decades ago it would have been well-nigh possible for a Scotsman to say: "I like and enjoy cricket". Even then, Scotland had one of the highest players-per-head-of-population figures in the world when it came to England's game - those Jocks who enjoyed the thwack of leather on willow simply tended to keep quiet about it though.
Cricket was an effete English pastime, a rather meaningless way of filling-in the weeks while real sportsmen - full backs, wing halves and inside forwards rather than batsmen, bowlers or wicket-keepers - reinvigorated themselves for the new season.
But, these days are past and as someone who has had as much fun and entertainment on the huge West Terrace at Headingley as on the blessed slopes of Hampden, I can say not before time. Be he from a mining town like Barnsley, a mill town such as Accrington, a farming town such as Taunton or a stockbroker living in the commuter belt of Surrey, Middlesex, Essex of Kent, an English cricket fan can be every bit as passionate, knowledgeable or commited to his team as any Old Firm, Hearts or Auchinleck Talbot fan.
So, I am delighted to see England become, officially the Number One Test Match-playing nation. It's not like winning the World Cup: let's face it, a World Cup of test match cricket would last longer than the 100 Years War, so, it's never going to happen - but to be THE best, at the purest form of the game - will surely swell the chest of every Englishman.
There are many reasons why England got there, and there are few lessons which Scottish football can learn from their success - but, there are some.
The main lesson is - the way the English do not over-play their top talent. County Cricket, for so long the mainstay of English cricket is, to be honest, about as gripping as your average SFL Second Division game, and is watched by a similar fan base of the old, the indolent and the very, very few who still care.
One-day cricket is true knock-out, knock-about stuff, with a guaranteed outcome, even if Duckworth-Lewis (don't ask) is hardly a penalty shoot-out, but does give a winner.
Twenty-20 is the cricket equivalent of three-and-in and has about as much relevance to the real game. No, Test Cricket is the real deal.
And England are best, because, as far as possible, they keep their main men fresh for the real game. After the mental high of Edgbaston, Strauss, Cook, Broad, Anderson & Co will not be asked to turn up tomorrow to play county cricket at the English equivalent of Station Park, Forfar, Bayview, or Ochilview. Instead, they will rest, recuperate and prepare to twist the knife in the next test.
If, as happened to captain Strauss earlier in the summer, they are out of form and need a quiet run-out somewhere, telephone calls are made, arrangements put in place and it happens. Someone, somewhere within the England and Wales Cricket Board, oils the wheels to make England the best.
Now, look at the SFA, where you often get the impression someone, somewhere, is moving the goalposts to try to derial Scotland. 'Twas ever thus. In 1950, we scored a spectacular own goal, when we knocked-back a guaranteed place in the World Cup finals in Brazil. Four years later, we allowed Rangers to go off on a club tour to North America, which coincided with the World Cup finals in Switerland.
In 1962 and 1966 we went into crucial "must win" World Cup qualifiers without players, injured in meaningless league games which ought to have been postponed. Things have improved since then, thanks mainly to FIFA initiatives, but, today still, what our clubs want takes precedence over what the national team needs - and with most of the TV money going to the clubs, this will not change shortly.
Also, all of the English cricketers play for English clubs. Just think back over the 130 years since the first Scottish amateur accepted a job down south, provided he played for Darwen, or Accrington Stanley, or Preston North End. The English clubs have never been keen to let their "Scotch professors" return north on international duty. Of course the afore-mentioned FIFA rules mean they have little option today. But, unless we have our top men, playing in Scotland and in a culture where Scotland, rather than the Old Firm, Aberdeen, Hearts of Hibs, is the priority - we will never again be woprld-beaters.
Of course, introducing a football version of cricket's centrally-contracted core of the international side will never be easy. The Rugby Football Union in England has tried it, but has yet to reach the sort of agreement the ECB has with the Counties. But, I am sure it could be done; and if it was - perhaps we would see Scotland back in at least the second pot in World Cup or European Championship draws, and perhaps, in time, in the first pot.
Mind you, for that to happen, as well as the internal organisation, we would need one other thing which we don't have at the moment - a squad of talented players. England beat India at cricket because they had the bowlers - the strikers of that game.
Anderson, Bresnan, Broad and Tremlett were better than what India had. English football is in a bad way because they lack quality strikers - in cricket parlance Rooney is an all-rounder rather than a specialist striker.
How much worse off are we? A new Denis Law and proper organisation and what might we achieve?
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