Zoo Station

Matthew Engel, columnist for the Financial Times and Wisden, poses an interesting question: does the English cricket team perform better every time the Prince of Wales gets married? The reference, of course, is to England's stellar showing against Australia in the current Ashes series.

It happens every time the Prince of Wales gets married. In 1981, within weeks of Charles’ wedding to Diana, a young tearaway called Ian Botham marked the occasion by leading England to a stunning set of victories over Australia at cricket. For a while, England held sway over their greatest sporting rivals, Botham was the most famous sportsman in the country and the most traditional English game became cool and fashionable again. The generation that had grown up in the 1960s embraced cricket and the Arcadian idyll it represents.

But it all faded horribly, just like the royal marriage. In 1989, Australia regained the Ashes, the quasi-mythical trophy for which the teams compete; and they have held them ever since, and always by embarrassingly wide margins. In England, football, which in the 1980s was associated with marauding gangs of hooligans, regained its old dominance and more: for schoolboys, supporting one Premiership team or another has become more compulsory than mathematics.

Here's hoping that English cricket fortunes (not to mention the Prince's new marriage) lasts longer this time around.