GET OVER IT! GRUB'S ALWAYS BEEN ON THE MENU

GET OVER IT! GRUB’S ALWAYS BEEN ON THE MENU

- Martin Johnson

When the players all trooped off for lunch in Pretoria last weekend with two runs needed to win, it wasn’t difficult to predict the hoots of derision – “ridiculous”, “unbelievable”, “the game’s becoming a laughing stock” – from various commentators around the world.

Michael Vaughan was one of them, banging on about common sense in his twitter column, but since when has common sense had anything to do with it? Where cricket’s concerned, lunchtime is lunchtime, and it really doesn’t matter whether a team needs two runs to win with nine wickets in hand and a trillion overs left to get them.

If the goings-on in Pretoria had taken place when CLR James was penning: “Beyond A Boundary” it’s not unreasonable to speculate that cricket’s lexicon of deep and meaningful phrases might now include: “What do they know of the luncheon interval, who only the luncheon interval know?” No, meal breaks in cricket are a serious business, and not to be moved, postponed, or otherwise mucked around with.

Consider the poor old fielder at the County Ground, Derby, in mid-April, counting his goosepimples down at fine leg. The upcoming 40 minutes to inspect his blisters and get to grips with a warming bowl of soup is an image in his head every bit as vivid the desert traveller’s oasis, and the only thing that keeps him going before delirium sets in. To delay it, even for a couple of runs, could be fatal.

Food and cricket have always been inextricably entwined, even in the modern era of fancy diet sheets and protein plans. If Mike Gatting had just been starting out, he’d be – quite literally – half the man he was, and had he been a member of England’s tour party to Australia in 2013-14, the poor man would have come home looking like a pipe cleaner.