I spent my Saturday extremely indulgently. I barely moved from my armchair and I let the expert descriptions of the TMS-team paint the picture of an improbably and thrilling Test Match win. Despite a lack of physical activity, I enjoyed a day when my heart rate had plenty of opportunity to work harder. I expect I shared this with many other cricket-loving radio fans. My consciousness was suspended and my metabolic rate lowered, only when lunch and tea at Old Trafford allowed me a foray, somnambulistically, to the kitchen. 

Non cricket lovers may not be aware of this, but most of the people who know me, are cricket lovers, so I felt that I might analyse what the win meant to me. This is not all about cricket, but it is largely about sport. England’s win would be attracting lots of descriptors like ‘remarkable’ and ‘improbable’, and even the voguish and perhaps-overused, ‘unprecedented’, save for the fact that about a year ago the same team did something perhaps even more improbable, when beating Australia at Headingley.

No matter. It was how I felt as the day wore on that I want to relive and to consider. I cannot think of a Test Match that I have not wanted England to win, in which they have played, so my joy at the shrinking of the target during the day was not exceptional. It is true that even a cricketer of my modest achievements understood that the vagaries of the pitch, combined with a brilliant and balanced Pakistani attack, meant winning was hugely unlikely. Wins from far behind, in any contest, especially sporting ones, are the most celebrated. The odds are genuinely defied. 

For me, though, this was about the individuals who played the most significant part, that affected me particularly. Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes have already distinguished themselves on previous occasions wearing England’s colours. Both are Test Match centurions, yet for different reasons, neither is entirely sure of their place in the line up. Both have endured poor form lately, and for Buttler, whose father had just been taken ill, that poor form has extended to his wicket-keeping role. He may be an all-rounder but this is a role where specialisation, or lack of it, gets exposed and even he may think he is keeping better glovemen from the team. He had had a wretched match behind the stumps. Now he was in front of them. The pitch had some spite, the bowlers were quick, or the wiliest of wrist spinners, or metronomically accurate. 

I wanted an England win, but I wanted Buttler to win it. He is one of the most naturally gifted players I have ever watched. I have never met him and I doubt that I ever shall, but his reputation is that he is a nice guy. Woakes, too, for that matter. But do nice guys win? Buttler’s predecessor, Johnny Bairstow, is almost as extravagantly talented and may have demonstrated more competence over a longer period with the keeping gloves. But a wretched run of form cost him his place. Bairstow is one of the most watchable players in English cricket, but I am a Buttler fan. I wanted the change and now, I wanted to be proved that my alliance with Jos was not a flawed choice. Somehow, I was emotionally invested. Sure, all the runs that were scored helped me get more excited about an unlikely England win, but I wanted this to be redemption time for my favourite player. 

In the end, Woakes, who was unbeaten at the end and struck the winning boundary, made the biggest individual contribution, but Buttler, by dominating an attack that had reduced England to a desperate 117 for 5, was the catalyst for the win. When he struck a mammoth six with the victory reduced to tens of runs not a hundred plus, it felt like he had signalled the win. When he was dismissed, my heart sank, but I felt he had ‘done enough’.

A day later I thought about why it was important to me that one player should do particularly well. Cricket is a team game, but I rarely watch it without wishing one or two players better fortune than the rest, and occasionally I admit to wishing ill on some. Why? I don’t know the players personally, and they will never get an opportunity to show appreciation for my specific support and my attempt to generate good fortune for them. Psychoanalytically this is about identification and projection. Buttler is an ideal for me. He plays the game with a verve and impudence, but extreme skill, that is way beyond the game I played. Other lesser players represent the stodginess and ineptitude of my game. I project my weaknesses into them and come to hate them for not being an ideal, and for them reminding me of my flaws. My apologies to Mr Denly, a good player, but one I wished to see dropped. England has had a succession of opening batsmen over the past decade and I seize analyses of their shortcomings rather than admire their bravery and technique in the most challenging of environments. 

I thought about this player identification in other contexts. I am a long-suffering West Ham fan. The current squad includes a mercurial and gifted player from Brazil, Felipe Anderson. I have seen very few players wear the Irons’s claret and blue kit, and display such natural gifts. His ball control and trickery, his balance and his acceleration, are all wonders to me. In the recent past only one other import from the European leagues, Dmitri Payet, has shown similar gifts. When I was growing up, perhaps Alan Devonshire could be mentioned in a similar breath, but nobody else. My favourite player of all time, Sir Trevor Brooking, was classy, strong and exceptional, but somehow seemed less extraordinarily gifted that Anderson. 

My assessment of this player’s gifts, is a minority view. The point about Anderson is that I watch my beloved Hammers and hope for a win. It had been quite rare, pre-lockdown. But I hope to see Anderson play, and when he does, that he will be the matchwinner. The reason I write “when he does” is because he is no longer a first choice. Most of the crowd have lost faith in him and the twittersphere is alive with much more contempt, than praise, for him after every game – and that is from Hammers’ fans, rather than opposition club fans. It should not matter to me who makes the difference for my team, merely that someone does and the win is achieved. But matter it does.

Based on a small sample and extrapolating wildly, I would say we all have favourites and we rarely can explain why. When I was school age, Britain was blessed with the cream of middle distance running. But could I bathe in the glories of each athlete? No. I was an ‘Ovett man’ whereas many of my peers were ‘Coe men’. But Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe were world class and ran for my country. How did I fail not to treat their triumphs alike? It is not even about their background or family or race.

A few years ago I was at Wimbledon watching the Ladies Semi-Finals. Serena Williams was playing her sister, Venus. I had no obvious emotional investment, or so I thought, but I found myself willing Venus to overcome her younger sister. It is possible that because I had a brilliantly-talented, sporting, younger sibling, that I wanted Venus to win. It may have been simply that she represented gazelle-like grace, against her sister’s more brutish physical strength, but whatever the reason I took sides. Serena won. I think most people I know have strong feelings about Roger Federer. My mother is one. Whoever is the other side of the net, is the ‘bad guy’. I can even do it with golfers – I am a long-standing fan of the English duo Justin Rose and Paul Casey. Why? Not sure.

And athletes can move categories. When great players reach the twilight of their careers, I am quite likely to will them to victory, despite having willed their defeats earlier in their career. I never was a great fan of John McEnroe, despite his outrageous gifts and entertainment value, but I became a fan as his career wound down. At the other end of the age scale, most supporters are like me in wanting a new face to do well. When a football team introduces a teenage talent, I find myself thinking that whatever the outcome I want him or her to play well. I am identifying with a fear of the negative – don’t make a mistake, do well enough to play the next game – that they probably do not feel. No doubt, though, that watching a teenage Michael Owen, was something I cared about at the time.

It is a little strange, but must be why television competitions are so compelling. We don’t care whether people we don’t know personally are baking off, dancing off or something else off on a Love Island, merely that we can get a vicarious kick from how they do. And because it is about personal identification, we can debate it with friends and family with a remarkable level of vehemence. It just so happens that Buttler has the role my brother, Neil, held professionally for three different county sides. I am not sure what he thinks, and I know he is more qualified to comment, but I will debate the composition of the England side and the position of wicketkeeper with him and anyone else who does not share my view. Passionately! Neil is a Hammers fan too, and he probably would not pick my man, Felipe.

I have not answered my question to myself, about why I get emotionally invested in individual players. My experience, though, is that this is quite common. I think it may be about an idealised self and our need to aspire to something better than we are, but I could be way off-beam. I welcome anyone else’s views on how sport affects their emotions and to what extent it is harnessed to individual players/athletes. It is not all about excellence – I wonder how many of my peers celebrated Daley Thompson, or Ian Botham, or Paul Gascoigne or had other favourites at the time these giants played?