Something I did not see - Stokes's Low key celebration of his century (100 runs) - he still needed another 35 runs
I was not enjoying much of this summer's Ashes Test series; because of the batting. England's current Test batting is probably the worst it has been in the history of the professional sport; while watching our (very good) bowlers utterly failing to get-out the Australian Steve Smith has been almost unbearable. Smith is probably the best batsman of the past half century; but is a nasty person, a cheat and horribly ugly to watch.
Yet on Sunday afternoon was one of the miraculous things of sport, when England were (as usual) heading inexorably towards another heavy and deserved defeat; and then this was almost single-handedly - and impossibly - turned to victory by the batting of Ben Stokes.
Expert judges of the game with decades of experience (eg. Geoffrey Boycott - a man not given to hyperbole, to put it mildly) called it the greatest innings they had ever seen; given the context (Ashes on the line), the superb quality of the Australian bowling, the sheer pressure...
I was very involved with the experience, and 'yet' - as with several of my favourite sporting events - I was listening on radio (Test Match Special). The visual events therefore happening in my imagination (of course I knew, from previous TV, what everybody looked like and how they played). And I could scarcely have enjoyed it more!
It's interesting, and probably significant; that apparently less is more, sometimes - maybe often. The absence of the visual apparently engaged the emotions more than if I could have seen it. Less passive and externally-manipulated; more active and free.
