Cricket fills hole sporting fast food just can’t reach

The Ashes doesn’t just ask that you set one five-day or two-week stint aside, it demands you ring-fence just under seven weeks of your life.

There may be no World Cup or Olympic Games to monopolise our summer this year but the all-out assault by sport on our senses continues apace as the Lions tour hands the baton on to Wimbledon which in turn passes it on to the Tour de France… and on and on and on.

With TV gorging on them all, as well as the usual diet of hurling and football besides, sport is now an all-you-can-eat buffet. The end result is much the same in that, although you can stuff your face on everything from archery to yachting, you invariably end up feeling like you may have sacrificed quality for quantity.