Ironic Cricket

As the English cricketers once again succumb in Australia, my anguished brother emails me from Spain: 'Why do English teams and sportsmen only win things once and then collapse?' He was at Wembley in 1966 and his life has been downhill ever since. Well, I've posted on the appalling England football team before. Their problem is they are celebrities, not sportsmen. But there does seem to be this wider issue of our habitual, languid, post-victory swoon into mediocrity if not downright ineptitude. Overcome with the effort and unexpectedness of our odd triumphs, we crumple on to the library chaise-longue and consume beef tea, arrowroot biscuits and, as our strength returns, the odd cucumber sandwich, until, decades later, we feel fully restored. Perhaps only Steve Redgrave, with gold medals in five consecutive Olympics, has truly resisted the temptation to swoon. Irony may be the problem; after all, it's just so unfunny to keep winning. Irony was certainly behind the award of BBC Sports Personality of the Year to a large bottomed royal who, I gather, rides horses