With all the zeppelins and all those other floating things that have been pervading the cricket in the last couple of months, it’s time to commission two cricket films – the first will of course be an anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

The second choice comes about as a result of a remark by the great Takeshi Kitano, talking about his film Zatoichi: ‘I realised that the way Zatoichi holds the sword is quiet like bowling in cricket: the way you hold the ball, the over-arm action.’ After this statement Kitano goes on to talk about all-rounders and dreams of making big budget films like the matrix where the sworsdman bats away the bullets one by one, hitting them away and then cutting each one in half as it goes. Can you imagine how fantastic a cricket film by Takeshi would be, with his sense of stillness and pace and the rhythm of form.

And Miyazaki, whose characters are basically all cricketers anyway – ‘The characters are born from repetition.’ It’s all so right. There’s a photo of Gilchrist immediately after the historic test series victory in India in which he is pretty much already straight out of Studio Ghibli. & just imagine the anime version of Dizzy Gilgamesh! I think he would have to be the lead role. The film would have to be called ‘Dizzy Gilgamesh’. If I thought anyone read this commentary I would announce a competition asking the kids to come up with anime drawings of the great hero. I don’t think there could be prizes but wouldn’t it be fabulous? Send entries to via the ‘contact nick’ link at the top of this page.