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Good morning. I went to my first Ashes game at Old Trafford in 1972. I was instantly hooked. I’ve followed the England versus Australia conflict avidly ever since. There have been highs - Geoffrey Boycott’s first day hundred at Leeds, his hundredth century in first class cricket - and lows. I wish I could forget the day Australia trounced England whilst I watched from behind a group of spectators in Mister Blobby outfits. And of course the ecstasy of England, coming through a tense final day in 2005, to at last regain the trophy. For me, cricket creates the perfect balance between the team and the individual. At any moment, the contest between bat and ball pits the skills of two players directly against each other. And yet, no matter how magnificent the contribution of one person - Ian Botham in 1981 for instance - victory takes a team effort. Away from cricket, in the year 2000, the Harvard based academic Bob Putnam wrote his seminal volume on the decline of the glue which links and holds local communities together. He gave it the title “Bowling Alone” - a reference to what he had observed in American bowling alleys, where team competitions had been replaced almost entirely by individual games. It was the same year in which I first became a Church of England bishop, and began to feel the weight being put on me, to be some kind of star individual performer in my field. I’m grateful to both Putnam’s book, and my love of cricket, for helping to keep me committed to playing a team game. Should their example not prove enough, I can go back further, to the stories of the little community that gathered around Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago. Like a good team captain, he brought out the best from the diverse band of women and men who followed him. He trained and equipped them, knew their strengths and weaknesses, sent them out in pairs and groups rather than individually, and celebrated their achievements when they returned. He understood that religious faith is not simply a matter of individual private belief and practice but of how those who share a particular commitment and allegiance, work together for the good of all. Two years ago I was part of an eleven made up of Christian clergy and Muslim imams from Lancashire; our opponents, a similar side from Yorkshire. We played at a ground in the constituency of Jo Cox, the MP who had been tragically murdered the previous year. The diversity within each side was fully subsumed in our commitment to the honour of our respective counties. It wasn’t of the standard we may hope to see from Edgbaston later this morning, but it was very definitely in both the style and spirit of cricket.