Lord Tebbit’s “cricket test” in 1990 questioned the loyalties of ethnic minorities by asking whether British Asians cheered the England team or their opponents. It has been much criticised, but it did highlight the capacity of sport to expose awkward issues of identity.

Scottish Nationalists are the latest to be snared. Shona Robison, sports minister in the minority SNP government, last week attended the European Under-15 Cricket Championships in Arbroath in an implied public rebuke to backbenchers from her party who had criticised television coverage of the England v Australia Ashes series because it was too English.