I used to think the definition of decadence, sport on television-wise, was watching snooker in the afternoon. It isn’t. It’s watching county cricket in the morning.

I learnt this yesterday. Derbyshire were playing Essex. And still are, of course, because a county cricket match goes on for days, weeks, sometimes months. But there’s a lot riding on this elongated encounter. Nineteen points from this game would lead Essex to be promoted to the LV County Championship first division in second place. In other words, their season could be said to have come down to the next few days/weeks/months (delete accordingly).

How do you get 19 points in county cricket? I still don’t entirely know. You need to win, I think. But bonus points seem to be available in all sorts of areas, not related to the outcome of the match. For taking wickets rapidly, for example, or for racking up runs at a lick. Also, I imagine, for good behaviour and being really helpful during the lunch interval by putting your plate in the dishwasher.

Anyway, I care a bit about Essex. It’s my home county. So I tuned in at the start of play — only for guilt to take hold almost immediately. With snooker in the afternoon, you could comfort yourself with the thought that some other people somewhere would be watching. Students, for instance. And the bewildered. But county cricket in the morning? It didn’t feel like it. One had that eerie, distinctly solitary sensation that Captain Oates must have experienced, shortly after leaving the tent.

There was certainly almost no one in the ground. At the opening of play yesterday, I would hazard that the number of people parked round the back in Sky Sports’s outside broadcast trucks exceeded the paying customers in the seats by a factor of seven. And this is not a sustainable situation, surely. A sports event, one realises, needs a crowd. Otherwise the people at home feel uncomfortable — slightly guilty, even. Then they switch off.

Over on Strictly Come Dancing — It Takes Two (which we feel no shame about watching, because it’s the Newsnight, if you will, of the pro-celebrity ballroom scene), Martina Hingis’s first-round exit at the hands of a relatively unknown Crimewatch presenter grew no easier to comprehend. And this despite the benefit of slow-motion replays, background interviews with the judges responsible for the decision and a contractually obliged appearance from Hingis.

Len Goodman, whose vote ultimately dispatched the tennis legend to the changing room, merely said he thought the bloke from Crimewatch had nicked it with a better performance in the dance-off. But in which particular areas was it better? Specific reasons were frustratingly absent.

One’s abiding feeling that Hingis had the greater potential was only increased by the revelation (courtesy of an access-all-areas report by Camilla Dallerup, the former competitor) that the contestants’ make-up goes on first thing in the morning. Accordingly, by the time Hingis got round to dancing on Saturday night, she had been carrying half a hundredweight of green cement on each eyelid for at least eight hours. It’s a wonder she could still get up, let alone produce a passable rumba, and surely the judges should have taken that into consideration.

The tennis legend seemed to be taking the defeat on the chin — or, more accurately, on the teeth. Grilled on her disappointment by Claudia Winkleman, Hingis wielded the confusingly sourceless, 250-watt smile that, coupled with a pounding forehand, took her to five grand-slam titles and more than $20 million-worth of prize money.

Her line was that it was a shame it was over so quickly, but it had been a lot of fun, nonetheless, she had learnt a lot and maybe she would come back next time, yadda yadda.

Some of us were finding it harder to look on the bright side. Next time, indeed. There are no second acts in Strictly Come Dancing. Moreover, with Joe Calzaghe dancing like a phone box and Phil Tufnell struggling to control his tongue, the loss of Hingis has left sport’s multipronged assault on the biggest ballroom prize of them all in utter disarray. True, Jade Johnson, the Olympic athlete, didn’t put too many feet wrong in the opening two days of competition, but the long jumper’s suggestion that this is all just a bit of fun as far as she is concerned, added to her well-documented vulnerability to injury, hasn’t instilled confidence.

Two words, though: Richard Dunwoody. Very little has been said about the former champion rider in the build-up to the tournament, but he could just be the competition’s dark horse, or, at any rate, dark jockey. When Dunwoody saddles up and rides into the contest for the first time tomorrow night, the burden of sport’s expectations will be saddling up with him. No pressure, though, Richard.