‘Acceptance of mediocrity’: Middlesex gaze south enviously with golden years long gone

With their last title a decade ago, young players moving on and coach churn, Middlesex are no longer even the most famous team that call Lord’s home

Middlesex is unlike every other English county in at least one very important way. It doesn’t actually exist. It was abolished by the London Government Act of 1963, persisted, in dotage, as a postal subdivision, until Royal Mail put it to sleep in 1996. Today, you’ll find it on the tiles of Swiss Cottage Tube station – which are embossed with its badge of three seaxes – the pediment of the Sessions House in Clerkenwell, the mailing addresses of people who just won’t let go, the minutes of Spelthorne council, the titles of three hospitals, a university, assorted sports teams and tournaments, and the cricket club.

Those who don’t know any better will tell you English cricket is a country pursuit. It’s not. Sport England’s latest data showed 250,000 Londoners played at least once last year. That’s around 20% of the adult playing population in England and Wales. Walk from Lord’s into the playing fields in Regent’s Park and you will find five, six, seven games going on all at once on the public pitches. Over the road at Fab’s Food & Wine they always have the Indian Premier League on in the afternoons, streaming on a mobile phone. The guy who runs it tells me he is a Royal Challengers Bengaluru fan; I ask if he knows which county plays at the ground around the corner. “No idea.”