Many of you will be aware that Michael Vaughan has taken up ‘artballing’. Vaughan rented a warehouse over the winter and produced a host of artballing works, which basically entails hitting cricket balls covered in paint against a canvas to create art.

This raises two key questions. Firstly, how did he see the red ball under artificial lights. Secondly, cricket has contributed to art, but what has art done in return?

It’s a give and take situation and cricket has got a raw deal. Art hasn’t given anything back. For example, take a look at the various IPL kits. Complementary colours? What are they? Even a basic sense of aesthetics would improve the garish, clashing outfits on display in South Africa right now.

Of the various artistic movements, cricket can only realistically claim to acknowledge surrealism - as embodied by Steve Harmison’s unpredictable approach to batting. Don’t try and claim that impressionism has graced the game. Rory Bremner’s cricketing parody of Paul Hardcastle’s 19 is a different kind of impressionism; one that unfortunately doesn’t qualify as art.

You’d think music might be a branch of the arts that had permeated cricket, but just listen to Channel 5’s highlights theme tune, Shine by Shannon Noll. Any song that makes you yearn for the halcyon days of Lou Bega’s Mambo No.5 from the Channel 4 highlights is manifestly not art on any level.

That said, if Vaughan wants to recover his place as England’s number three, he’d do well to avoid bringing any of the chaos of Jackson Pollock’s No.5 with him.

See King Cricket‘s regular blog at www.kingcricket.co.uk. King Cricket is a cult figure in the world of cricket blogs and was TWC’s first Best-of-blogs winner in April 2008.