The silence of two Brians speaks volumes about the psyche of English cricket watchers

We respond more to defeat than victory, the spirit of Dunkirk not El Alamein

It was, with one substantial blip, a quite wonderful sporting weekend, at least from where I was sitting, which was in front of the telly for longer than was perhaps good for me.

First up, City winning the Manchester derby, which was highly entertaining.

I have a big soft spot for Kevin Keegan – have had, even though I supported Everton and he played for Liverpool, ever since he fell off his bike on Superstars – so it was nice to see him overseeing a revenge of sorts over his old nemesis, Sir Alex Ferguson.

And after that warming spectacle I greatly enjoyed Sky's coverage of England v the All Blacks, not least for the commentary of Miles Harrison, who has perfected the considerable art of making statements which sound authoritative and profound, yet on careful analysis are absolute gobbledegook. The black shirt of New Zealand, he declared just before kick-off, represents "the very fabric of sport on which special days like this are built". How very true, I thought, until I pieced together the actual words. Then I thought, "you what?" Anyway, after watching England edging victory over New Zealand, I watched the last seconds of Ireland thrillingly defeat of Australia, and then came the footie results, which yielded fourth place in the Premiership for Everton and the end of Liverpool's unbeaten record. And if all that wasn't pleasurable enough, my second team, Southport, won 2-0 away in the Conference, although as they were playing Hereford United, the nearest team to where we live, I had to rein in my jubilation slightly.

The one blip, of course, was England's resounding defeat in the first Ashes Test. But I didn't mind that too much. After all, with my long-suffering football team's ascent into nosebleed territory, there's only so much disorientation a man can take. Besides, there's nothing that English cricket-lovers like to talk about quite as much as a thumping in the Ashes.

On Thursday morning, Brian, who is painting our kitchen, arrived with his customary diligence at 7.45. He was dropped off by another painter-decorator, Brian. Like me, Brian had stayed up late to watch the opening exchanges in Brisbane, and like me he had nodded off once it became clear that Matthew Hayden and Ricky Ponting were seeing the ball like a Spacehopper, although whether, like me, he jerked awake in the small hours to find that he had been dribbling copiously down his chin, it seemed indelicate to ask.

We had a long, animated natter about England's failings on that first day, starting with Nasser Hussain's unusually muddle-headed decision to put Australia in. "Australia could pick a team, disregard it, pick another team, disregard that as well, and then pick a team to retain the Ashes," said Brian, which seemed to me like the sort of profound, authoritative and perfectly intelligible remark that Miles Harrison so often strives for, yet so often just fails to bring off.

On Friday morning Brian again arrived on the dot of 7.45, dropped off again by Brian. Overnight, England had enjoyed just about the best second day anyone could have envisaged, keeping Australia below the psychologically crushing 500 mark.

Towards the end of the first day, incidentally, David Gower in the Sky commentary box had suggested that the Aussies were going to rack up up a whole "mass of runs". As they were 358 for 2 at the time, Gower was sticking his neck out only about as far as Gladstone Small ever managed, and Ian Botham rightly and mercilessly exposed it as a statement of the bleeding obvious, but 492 was not quite the mass of runs Gower, Botham, Steve Waugh or anyone else expected.

The England bowlers and fielders did excellently, and then the batsmen launched a spirited counter-attack with the loss of only Michael Vaughan's wicket for 158 runs. "Morning, Brian, morning Brian, good comeback by England," I said. "Morning, Brian, yes it was," said Brian, as he waved Brian off. And that was that. A confusing number of Brians, but no exultations about England sticking it up the Aussies, no praise for the bowlers, nothing.

Later, I pondered this phenomenon. There seems to be something in the English psyche which responds more to defeat than to victory. The spirit of Dunkirk, for example, is cited much more than the spirit of El Alamein. It would have been wonderful if the England football team had won the World Cup, but it would have given us far less to talk about than the quarter-final defeat by Brazil, David Seaman's lapse in goal, etc etc.

It's the same with the weather. When the sun is shining, all you get from your neighbour is a cursory "lovely day". But as winter closes in, and the wind whips up, and the rain lashes down, you can hardly shut him up. I have a feeling Brian and I will have many more in-depth conversations before this series is over.

b.viner@independent.co.uk