Jayne Dowle: Where sportsmanship comes before celebrity

This is one of the questions we cricket mothers spend quite a lot of time debating, especially at away matches when we are relieved of tea-making duties and can sit chatting as the 
sun sets gently and hopefully the rain holds off.

It is unlikely that any of us will see our children grow up to make a living out of playing sport, but we know that the experiences they go through now out there on the field will shape their characters for life.

I must stress that you will never entirely divorce my 10-year-old son Jack – or myself– from football. Jack has played in goal since he was four, and his grasp of tactics and knowledge of players and managers never 
ceases to amaze me, especially for a boy who struggles to remember his times-tables.

Football has taught him to keep going when his side is 6-0 down and it’s howling a gale. It connects him to his roots and his town, and it has taken him to places he never expected to go, such as the Etihad Stadium when his beloved Barnsley played Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-final in March.

For Jack, football has been instinctive; he could kick a ball as soon as could walk. In comparison, his cricket has taken some working at and only now, in his third season, is he beginning to understand the mechanics and to recognise where his strengths might lie.

Although I can’t pretend to be an expert on the demands of the game itself, I can claim some understanding of what constitutes decent behaviour, and I am impressed with the role models cricket provides.

Of course, cricket is not without its controversies, but what sticks in the mind of 10-year-olds are the good players who can hit sixes, bowl straight and come across like a cross between a sporting hero and a favourite uncle.

The best thing is they don’t have to be famous but players who stand 
out through their popularity and presence – Yorkshire’s Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow being a case in point during the last Test match at Headingley. At Jack’s age, the point is that cricketers exist to play cricket, not to show off about how much money they earn, or to gain notoriety for arguing with officials and getting sent off. To him, no matter how many sponsorship deals they might secure, they are first and foremost sportsmen, not celebrities throwing tantrums to get their own way.

He tells me that he likes playing cricket because it feels very organised, and we shouldn’t under-estimate what this inherent sense of order and discipline does for a child.

Respect for officials is paramount here. We all know about the curses and rude gestures acceptable on the football pitch, but in cricket, as in rugby union, this kind of thing is rarely brushed aside as the norm. This week’s case of Northampton and England hooker Dylan Hartley, whose 11-week ban for swearing at a referee means he will miss the Lions’ tour to Australia, proves that.

Everyone who plays sport understands frustration, as Jack knows when that winning goal gets past him no matter how hard he tries to stop it. With cricket though, he is learning to take his time and accept that he can’t do everything he wants to just yet.

This acceptance of his limits is something new for my daredevil son, and I embrace it as a welcome sign. If cricket has done anything for him personally, it is to steady him down, and encourage him to take the long view of a situation rather than rushing in headlong with no thought for the consequences.

And for the first time in his sporting life, he is learning to participate fully in a game as a team member rather than as a lone figure in goal. This is teaching him a lot about acceptance of others.

The great thing about cricket too, at this level at least, is that all-comers are welcome. Even if they can’t run well, or bat hard or bowl straight, it doesn’t really matter because they all support each other. And as Jack says, the major thing about cricket for him is its sporting nature. Even when his team loses, which is quite often, there is a solidarity that is touching to witness, and proper respect – that word again – for the opposing XI, a situation relatively rare in junior football, it must be said.

I’ve got proper respect too, for Jack, for his team-mates, and for the coaches, whose indefatigable optimism is an inspiration to us all. It is not only Jack who has learned patience, application and how to overcome obstacles through cricket, I have too. And I’m picking up some useful tea-making skills along the way as well.