"CRICKET is the national sport again," trumpeted the BBC. Is there, in this declaration, a tacit acceptance that the UK as such, is rapidly breaking up?

In Scotland, Association Football is the national game, Old Firm battles and all that, while in Wales, Rugby Union reigns supreme and, presumably, always will.

In the Six Counties, Gaelic Football is the national sport, as in Eire.

Only in England is cricket the national game, occupying not only several back pages of the national newspapers, but often the front and middle pages as well, pushing aside international affairs, terrorism, natural disasters and planet-wide climate change.

D E MARGRETT,

Worcester.