IT USED to be said that politics and sports shouldn’t mix. This was most ardently heard by politicians and administrators who wanted to maintain links to white South African cricket in the 1980s. 

They were the kind of bureaucrats who Derek Pringle complained to about racism at Essex only to be told that “members should be respected at all times.”

Robert Winder’s article on the Windrush generation reminds us that migrants face racism at every turn, “whether they were looking for a house, a job, a drink or just a chat.”

Moeen Ali reveals in his autobiography a conviction that South Asian cricketers continue to get a bad deal.

Talking of politics, there are at least five articles that refer to Brexit in this year’s Wisden (and I’ve only read the first two sections). The editor uses it to make a point about the forthcoming Hundred competition. 

“This was cricket’s Brexit, an unnecessary gamble that had overshadowed all else, gone over budget and would end in tears.” But while Brexit has many advocates, it is difficult to find anyone who can argue that cricket needs a fourth format.

Existing fans are made to feel like outcasts. “To alienate your core constituency,” remarked Lawrence Booth, “was a curious marketing ploy.”

Vic Marks derides those who thought that having a few matches of the new competition on terrestrial television would transform the sport’s fan base. “It is easier to believe in a harmonious Brexit.”

On the day that the All Stars reported that 50,000 children had signed up to their programme, the ECB chairman, Colin Graves, lamented that “the younger generation are just not attracted to cricket.”

One wonders what measures could be taken to attract the West Indian cricketer. Since 2005, only two players of Caribbean descent — Michael Carberry and Chris Jordan — have played Test cricket for England.

Winder notes the migrants’ assimilation into an inner-city life which, alongside a mirth of pitches, is dominated by a football culture.

Just as for other working-class youngsters, the lack of an advancement in cricket is in large part down to a lack of opportunity.

Graves might want to assess his board’s role in any youthful lack of enthusiasm to the sport.

Every one of Alastair Cook’s runs, for instance, came from behind a TV paywall. Tributes confirm how much the opener will be missed, not just for his runs but his representing an honesty that is lacking in public life, whether it be in the Brexit debate or Donald Trump’s tweets.

Tanya Aldred informs us that Brexit even overshadowed England’s triumph over Sri Lanka in the winter.

Aside from our problems with leaving Europe, the biggest story of the year was the Australian ball-tampering.

The team are condemned for considering themselves above the law, with coach Darren Lehmann viewed as guilty as the players for his role in asserting a way of playing. 

Taking cues from their coach, players became exponents of the “Australian way” that involved pushing “the line” to see how far they could go. Yet, according to Greg Baum, their handiwork was so inept, that they were simply “making it up as they went along.” 

However, the problem was much deeper. Lehmann was useful because he let David Warner off the leash but was written off as soon as his players were caught cheating.

“It was the kind of ruling-class hypocrisy,” noted Booth, “thought to be an English disease.” 

An Ethics Centre investigation concluded that an attitude that winning was the only thing that matters had allowed players and staff to redefine cheating as playing hard.

Sandpapergate marked the culmination of “a corporate model designed exclusively to generate a profit for the sport’s shareholders.”

Have the lessons been learned? Ex-captain Michael Clarke has suggested that the team “were not going to win shit” if they followed Tim Paine’s approach of treating the opposition with respect.

Imran Khan is the sixth first-class cricketer to become prime minister. An article on Pakistani cricket identifies how it shares many features of contemporary politics.

It is still quite remarkable that the sport continues to thrive in a state whose defence budget exceeds the combined expenditure of health and education.

Arguably, a bigger threat to cricket than Sandpapergate, the Hundred or even Brexit is climate change. The publication of the Climate Coalition report in February 2018 named cricket as the sport most likely to be affected by an environmental impact. 

A charity match was held at Lord’s between the West Indies and a World XI to raise money for cricket grounds in the Caribbean that had been damaged by hurricanes. Yet, there was no mention of climate change in the pre-match publicity, which tends to highlight a general lack of plan or provision for the future.

Other things happened. Many of them to Virat Kohli, who was named as the world’s leading cricketer for a third successive year. 

Amid the Indian Premier League jamboree, he made no secret that Test cricket was his preferred form of the game and that India’s win in Australia for the first time was the greatest moment of his career. 

That he can be mentioned in the same space as Sachin Tendulkar and Don Bradman without uproar shows how his talent continues to prosper.

England lost to Scotland in a one-day international, which was one in the eye for the International Cricket Council, noted Alex Massie, “whose decision to make this year’s World Cup a 10-team affair owed everything to commercialism and nothing to the wider interests of the global game.”

This leads us back to the rationale of those behind the Hundred, and the sense that this season marks the end of a latest epoch. We have a World Cup and the Ashes to look forward to, but Matthew Engel fears that 2019 could be “the last summer.”

Still, as it says on the end of Jos Buttler’s bat handle: “Fuck it.” Enjoy the season!