How strange, and how satisfying it was to find that the two most troubled nations in cricket were the ones that met in the final of the splendid World Twenty20 yesterday. Sri Lanka and Pakistan came together in a wonderfully cheering way.

The difficult and dreadful times that both countries have gone through and are going through have been fully documented at the serious end of this newspaper. The terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore profoundly disturbed all of us who work on the sports pages and had us all, quite rightly, worrying if international sport was still a viable activity. After the shooting, the Indian Premier League had to become the South African Premier League for fear of more acts of murder.

But yesterday Sri Lanka and Pakistan met at Lord's and it was hard for a neutral not to hope that both sides won. Both sides had played glorious cricket to get to the final and had entertained and enriched us all with high cricketing skills and maverick invention.

But how does it feel for Pakistanis, for Sri Lankans? Certainly, it provided a cheering occasion in a gloomy time, but there really is more to it than that. Watching your national team contest a final is not quite the same as going out to see Mamma Mia!

There is a sense in which your national sporting team is you.

But it's not the army, and it's not the politicians. Your national cricket team are engaged in something utterly trivial and to have the opportunity to be concerned about a triviality is as deep a luxury as can be found when you have grown accustomed to dealing with matters of life and death. A chance to concern yourself with yorkers and scoop-shots, the doosra and the teesra - all of them performed in your name - is a glorious if brief holiday from care: a promise that a time will come when triviality can be restored to its rightful place, high on the agenda of human concerns.

In one of the lines most quoted on the back pages of newspapers with interests beyond transfer gossip, George Orwell said that sport is “war minus the shooting”. But war minus shooting is no longer war. War can only exist with shooting. War minus shooting equals not-war. And not-war is not all that far from peace.

Sport can exist only at those times when we can indulge in the luxury of triviality: the Olympic Games were not held in the years between 1936 and 1948 because the world had other things than triviality on its mind.

Of course, a bit of sport between Sri Lanka and Pakistan doesn't make everything all right. It's no consolation. It's no comfort. But it's a refreshing outbreak of triviality and, as such, it is something for us all to cheer. Sport exists as a kind of cod war, and, as such, it can't help but be an act of peace.

We are all poorer for Nadal's absence

Rafael Nadal won't be playing at Wimbledon this year and I'm with Roger Federer on this one. We are both agreed that it's a very sad thing and we both wish he was playing. Of course, Nadal's absence makes it easier for Federer to win, but that's not the point. You want to win by beating people, not by getting a bye.

Those of us who are filled with patriotic hopes for Andy Murray will have been caught in two minds by the news of Nadal's withdrawal. There is no doubt that this announcement gives Murray the chance of a lifetime. Nadal's withdrawal had effectively doubled his chance of winning the big one.

But he, too, will be feeling a sense of flatness, of disappointment, and those who will be shouting for him on their televisions, on court and in front of the big screen on the place formerly known as Henman Hill will do well to share that disappointment.

It's as if you had just set out from base camp to hear that Everest was now 1,000 feet lower. It takes some of the fear and trembling out of the occasion, but it also takes away some of the point. Whoever wins will know that the victory will come on easier terms. You don't want to win things for the sake of the things, you want to win things by beating people, by beating the best possible people, and thereby proving yourself the best of all.

Years of Aussie baiting finally bear rich fruit

It is not, I know, gentlemanly to boast of the honours showered upon one by a grateful world, but I find myself shaken out of my customary modesty by an honour so great it has to be shared. It comes in a book, The Best Of Enemies, put together by The Times's own Patrick Kidd and Australia's own Peter McGuinness.

It is, of course, a bit of an Ashes romp. And here's the honour: McGuinness has put me in his list of “Five Poms who Aussies love to hate”. It's wonderful to see that one's hard work over the years has not been wasted. I am grateful to be included alongside Paul Nixon, Jonny Wilkinson, John Bull and Germaine Greer. (Patrick counter-lists David Campese, Paul Keating, John O'Neill, Lleyton Hewitt and Stefan Dennis.)

McGuinness, in his tongue-in-cheek citation for me, mentions things such as “soaring intellect” and “gentleman scholar”. I'm just a sports writer who's read a couple of books, but if that's how it looks to an Australian, what can I do? But I really must remember to try not to upset any Australians when the Ashes finally start.

New-found joy of bumping gloves

I came out of retirement. Last weekend, I put on the Tewin Irregulars cricket cap once again - red with rings of yellow and purple - and we played a side from Moreton-in-Marsh. The great Paul Fisher played for both clubs; you see, this was his memorial and Paul's son, Mark, captained the Irregulars.

Last time I played, batsmen didn't bump gloves between overs and after boundaries. In a classic partnership, lasting much more than one over, my nephew, Luke Sellers, and I did all the glove-bumping and let me tell you, it is a fine thing to bump gloves with a hard-smiting nephew. We also won. I can't tell you how pleasant victory is. I'd forgotten the way that victory fills you with a calm, effortless love for the world. But the best thing was more subtle. I can't tell you how good it was once again to be shouting: “Well bowled, Fish!”

Carlos Tévez exit fails to tempt my annual prediction of United in decline

So now Carlos Tévez is to leave Manchester United, following hard on the heels of Cristiano Ronaldo and leaving the club with a sudden shortage of goalscorers. I am tempted to write a piece on how Sir Alex Ferguson has lost it and how the empire of Manchester United has begun its inevitable decline. I have written the piece every other season for years and every time I've been wrong. But here's the point: I've got to be right sometime. Trouble is, that Scotsman with the unpleasant manner has got it right so often that I've lost my nerve. Just my luck, then, if this turns out to be the one occasion when I should have written it.