Bill Bridge: Bedser knew that winter was the time for coaching, summer was for playing

The lads want to reduce the number of County Championship matches, look again at the 40-over competitions and bring a semblance of order to the Twenty20 season. They point to the confused end to the campaign just under way, when the possibility of competing in a lucrative Twenty20 tournament has been denied to English cricketers because the first-class season will not have ended when the slam-bam jolly gets under way. There is no indication, of course, that the players would accept smaller pay cheques for their reduced labour.

The players' request came only a day or so after the passing of the great Sir Alec Bedser, one of the old school if ever there was one and proud of the fact till his last breath.

What Sir Alec would have made of the players' argument did not take much working out. He was one of a generation of pace bowlers – Fred Trueman, Brian Statham, Alan Moss, Derek Shackleton, Peter Loader, Cliff Gladwin and Les Jackson were among the others – who would bowl over 1,000 overs in a season, year after year, taking 100 and more wickets as though by habit.

Bedser insisted the only way to maintain a rhythm as bowler was to keep bowling; he suggested the best training for the most physical of cricketing tasks was digging – with a shovel that is – whenever the opportunity arose, in his case at his father's allotment in Woking.

Bedser, when asked to present an award to Ryan Sidebottom who had been selected as one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year, confirmed he would be delighted to take part, on condition that the recipient had his hair cut.

Can you imagine young Sidebottom – or Stuart Broad, Graham Onions, James Anderson or Steve Finn for that matter – bowling anywhere near half of Bedser's annual effort, let alone picking up a spade and planting the spring vegetables?

Trueman was another great advocate of bowling hard and often, although he did not protest overmuch when his partner in Yorkshire's attack, Bob Platt, Mel Ryan, Tony Nicholson or whoever, had to plug away at the other end, uphill and into the breeze.

They had a point which applies just as much today as in their day; doing the job, be it batting or bowling, is the best way to improve. The time for coaching is during the winter, with the finishing touches applied at pre-season nets.

We shall, alas, never see a return to a "proper" County Championship but to tinker with the present format would be folly. It remains the best competition we have for producing Test cricketers; reducing its status in any way would completely erode the already negligible hope of English cricket finding another bowler like Bedser.

AFTER a lifetime of watching, arguing and reading about sport – occasionally playing a little but none too well – it is hard to recall an outburst of euphoria to match that created by Lionel Messi, right, in his four-goal solo demolition of Arsenal in Barcelona.

We all have our favourite players in so many disciplines and one of the best features of sport – something that is lost on those who view playing games as a waste of time and effort – is its capacity to provide stimulating conversation with complete strangers as differing opinions are aired.

Identifying the best footballer the game has seen is one popular topic, given new life by Messi's brilliance. It all depends on the individual, their club affiliation, the era in which he or she was watching (there was football before radio and TV, although it is sometimes hard to believe it these days) and the success or otherwise of the teams for which the candidates played.

Childhood memories of praise for men like David Jack, Alex James, Cliff Bastin, Clem Stephenson, Peter Doherty, Len Shackleton and Raich Carter confirm that there have always been hugely talented individuals in football.

Add names like Stan Matthews, Tom Finney, John Charles, Bobby Charlton and – as foreign football began to make an impact – Nils Liedholm, Luis Suarez, Juan Schiaffino, Ferenc Puskas, Franz Beckenbauer and Alfredo Di Stefano; the galaxy expands.

Then we come to the modern game and stir in George Best, Paul Gascoigne, Wayne Rooney, Diego Maradona, Michel Platini, Paulo Maldini, the Ronaldos and Zinedine Zidane; the mix is rich indeed.

Then along come little Messi, a boy who plays with an engaging smile but whose talent rarely shines when he pulls on the blue-and-white of Argentina, a failing some say is the doing of Maradona himself, who fears for his own standing in the rankings as the genius who did not cost Barcelona a penny in transfer fees continues to emerge as the outstanding player of the modern game.

Maybe some of the reaction to Messi's extravagant talent after the game in the Nou Camp was over the top but his display – and goal in Saturday's "el classico" against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu – confirmed that he is, indeed, a remarkable footballer.

Winning a World Cup would take him to the next level and make arguing his case over a Guinness or two that much easier.

AND ANOTHER THING

WITH so much riveting sport to attract the attention over the weekend – the Masters, Tony McCoy at last winning the Grand National, FA Cup semi-finals, county cricket in full swing and the league football season nearing its climax – one important result may, as today's clich has it, have slipped under your radar.

The match was played in faraway Thomond Park, a quarter-final in the Heineken Cup, by some margin the best competition in the world of rugby union. There Munster, as they generally do, overcame the visitors, in this case Northampton, a team on the rise under former Old Crossleyan full-back Jim Mallender.

Victory for Munster gave Ireland two representatives in the last four of the competition with the other two semi-finalists being French; that puts the state of English rugby in perspective.

The football boys are still squirming at the absence of an English club from the Champions League semi-finals; now the rugger lads must also grin and bear it.