Outside Edge: If the Super Series brings in new fans I'll eat a chocolate hat

As England and Sri Lanka commenced battle at Headingley Carnegie, at stake was much more than first blood on the first day of a hard-fought test match – on offer was the prospect of four precious points. It was as if the gaucheness of the football season, soon to be at its end, needed to find a new sporting outlet.

Andrew Strauss, director of England cricket, says the idea of a ‘Super Series’, in which points are awarded across all formats of the game to determine an overall victor, will help to ensure that each game over the course of a summer has a broader context. Tests, ODIs and T20s will be better “connected” and thus “every game counts for something more than just itself” – tortuous stuff.

The danger, in fact, is that games towards the end of a Super Series could become even more meaningless. If England beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in the test series (which is looking unlikely thus far) and happen to win the first ODI, then it’s 14 points to 0 and game set and match, even though Sri Lanka could still go on to win the one-day series 4-1 and thrash the pants off us in the single T20.

A points system has worked in the women’s game because there are generally fewer matches – six across the three formats in last year’s Ashes – and because it helped to mark an intriguing difference between the women’s and men’s games at their different stages of development.

I confess to slightly hating myself for being an old codger about this and if the Super Series trial turns on a whole new crowd to cricket, then I’ll happily eat a (chocolate) hat. Yet I can’t help but feel that boiling down matches to a matter of points on a tally sheet has the potential to undermine the thrill of cricket for cricket’s sake, rather than maximise it.

Nottinghamshire lost not only Stuart Broad for this week’s championship match against Warwickshire but also Jake Ball, whose terrific start to the season had led to an England call-up. No matter. Enter Luke Fletcher for his first start of the campaign and seven wickets promptly followed. At 6”6, Fletcher can be a handful – he played for England under-19s in his younger days and perhaps feels Broad and Ball aren’t the only seamers worth a look at Trent Bridge.

In the end though, his efforts counted for little, as Notts were bowled out for 173 chasing 226 to win on the last day – Keith Barker continuing in fine form with four wickets. Yet the denouement of the game was primarily notable for an extraordinary innings by all-rounder Samit Patel, who, lest we forget, was the surprise pick of England’s winter tour to South Africa and who is keen to ensure he stays in the frame with a trip to India next on England’s overseas itinerary.

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Coming to the crease with Notts forlornly placed at 25-5 in the eleventh over, Patel proceeded to spank 124 of the further 148 runs scored by his side. They came in just 82 balls, with 96 runs scored in boundaries. With an improbable win seeming suddenly possible, Patel was eventually last man out. Dougie Brown, Warwickshire’s coach, said afterwards: “Wherever we put the fielders, he just hit it over their heads.” The ECB says it wants to think about how the various formats of the game can be better “connected” – judging by Patel’s innings, the connection is clear.

I am a nervous man today. A friend happened to have a spare ticket for this Saturday’s play at Headingley and I jumped at the chance to join him. The added cost of travelling to and from Hertfordshire would be worth the opportunity to see England’s stars in full flow, I thought.

On Tuesday I took my first look at the weather forecast for Leeds: heavy rain predicted throughout Saturday. I emailed my pal who wisely said there was time for it to change. Sure enough, by yesterday there was the possibility of some spells of dark but unbursting cloud. As I write this, a few rays of sun are the promise held out by the BBC’s weather people – all assuming the match isn’t over by then.

No wonder that England is a nation of weather obsessives. Having accepted that our climate is at best ‘unpredictable’, we invent the one game that is least suited to being played in all weathers – it says something about our national propensity for putting hope over experience.