Chris Waters: It’s just not cricket any more as relationships fall to all-time low

Referring to the spot-fixing scandal that soured the countries’ meeting last summer, the pace bowler said: “A lot has gone on in the last 12 months with these two teams so it is going to be an interesting one.

“There is no love lost, but nowadays cricket isn’t the game it used to be in terms of sitting down at the end of the day and having a beer with the opposition.

“There are not many teams we form good relationships with because such is the contest on the field and the amount of cricket we play.

“I wouldn’t single out Pakistan as being any different to any other international team.”

Forget the spot-fixing element to Anderson’s comments and focus instead on the revelation therein... “there are not many teams we form good relationships with because such is the contest on the field and the amount of cricket we play.”

What a depressing picture that paints of international cricket.

Although it was no more than a throwaway line on Anderson’s part, an attempt to emphasise that Pakistan, in reality, are no special case, it was an unwittingly enlightening observation from the Lancashire man, who was effectively saying that England not only have a poor relationship with Pakistan but pretty much all the Test-playing nations.

In reality, of course, Pakistan are different – very different.

Indeed, some of their players have raised misconduct and malpractice to something of an art form. If there was a league table for cheating, Pakistan would be so far out in front you would only be able to detect them through a telescope.

In my view, they should have been suspended from international cricket in the wake of the spot-fixing saga that led to the imprisonment of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.

However, Anderson’s words, in their own small way, are just as disheartening as Pakistan’s antics.

For they portray a sport so devoid of camaraderie, so awash with professionalism, that the teams, effectively, hate each other’s guts.

Sure, there might be the odd good relationship between certain individuals, the odd friendly beverage shared along the way.

But, by and large, international cricket is a grim, humourless business played by grim, humourless individuals for whom winning has become the be-all and end-all.

Of course, it is the very nature of professional sport that people are competing against each other.

On the cricket field, the bowler is trying to dismiss the batsman who, in turn, is trying to score runs off the bowler.

Not only is sporting kudos at stake – but livelihoods, too.

As George Orwell observed, serious sport is war minus the shooting.

But is it not possible to play hard and fair while at the same time forming good relationships?

Is it not permissible to have a laugh and a joke on the field of play?

Sport is a serious business but it is also about entertainment and enjoyment. That, however, seems too often forgotten.

It is ironic that Anderson epitomises the surly face of the modern professional.

Off-the-field he might be the nicest bloke in the world; apparently his dressing room “banter” is “quality”, which is obviously the yardstick in such matters.

On the field, however, he has the air of a spoiled child – the sort who not only throws his toys out of the pram but then reverses the pram back over the toys to make sure the teddy bears are definitely dead.

Every grievance – real or imagined – seems woven into the fabric of his fractious complexion.

In fact, one would have to go far to witness a better example of execrable behaviour than that purveyed by Anderson during last season’s Roses match at Liverpool.

It was a classic clue as to why “there are not many teams we form good relationships with”.

Anderson, you may remember, peppered Yorkshire batsman Joe Sayers with a volley of bouncers and verbal abuse.

It was a childish over-reaction to comments made during pre-season by Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale that he thought Lancashire might struggle and showed why Anderson, for one, is not the sort who seems particularly adept at forming good relationships.

Sadly, it appears to be an unwritten rule that once you cross the white line, anything goes and the authorities have been culpable in allowing this to happen.

Indeed, it is incredible to me that the England and Wales Cricket Board did not censure Anderson for his antics at Liverpool, which cast cricket in a desperately poor light.

There is a world of difference between aggression and disproportionate antagonism and, at the risk of sounding fuddy-duddy, this lack of camaraderie never used to contaminate cricket.

Sure, there have always been players who don’t like each other, teams who haven’t got on like a house on fire, but there was genuine camaraderie in the cricket of yore.

Speak to former Yorkshire players such as Bob Platt, for instance, and he will tell you that his generation learned as much about the game in the bar after a day’s cricket as they ever did on the field itself, where good humour was never far from the surface.

The bar was where they did their talking (and, it has to be said, the odd bit of supping) as they sought the views of those who had been there, done it and got the T-shirt.

Nowadays, no sooner has a day’s play ended than players will normally go their separate ways.

There is little socialising on the cricket circuit, little scope for positive relationships to develop.

It is why I personally love to see the likes of Jesse Ryder thrive on the international scene and why there was no greater pleasure than watching Darren Lehmann bat for Yorkshire.

Both prove you do not have to be a finely-tuned athlete to succeed – just blessed with God-given talent.

At the end of the day, what’s the point of playing sport if you can’t have fun?

If you can’t form good relationships with people, what does that say about you and the sport?

England may have got to world No 1 by winning in style on a regular basis. But they have evidently not done so by forming good relationships with their opponents, which is a pretty unfortunate state of affairs.