Embracing cricket's sensitive side would help to challenge the boundaries of masculinity From George Hirst to Michael Vaughan, via Herbert Sutcliffe, Hedley Verity, Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott and Darren Gough, he delves into social history, hairstyles, the mores of the day and wicket-taking celebrations. Who knew that the coal-black-mop-haired broad-chested manifestation of northern virility made flesh, Trueman, used to slurp from the top of his pint and then hide the rest behind the curtain. Or that Sutcliffe shed his Yorkshire accent thanks to elocution lessons and would chastise his wife for slipping back into her broad Pudsey. Old-fashioned men these; still, no-nonsense, firm-handshake types, but even they felt they had to pretend that they were something they weren't. If there is a crisis of masculinity in 2012, then perhaps there was in 1955 and 1935 as well. It is astonishing to see how quickly attitudes change. In 1994, Gough missed the birth of his first child because he was in Brisbane for the Ashes. A decade later Vaughan, captain of England, abandoned a Test against New Zealand to be with his wife when she went into labour. Boycott was thought of as vain when he covered up his balding head with a panama hat, Gough wears earrings, Vaughan signed up to a hair replacement studio to repair his disappearing thatch. As Davidson yomps through the years, he gathers together tiny but poignant details. Brian Close suggests to the bereaved Boycott after the death of his father in 1967 that he might as well stay in London and play in Yorkshire's match because there is nothing he can do until the funeral. Boycott concurs. Gough, winner of Strictly Come Dancing and a supporter of a campaign to give women a hand in the kitchen, admits that he finds it difficult to kiss his sister and hug his brother. Sutcliffe, who was an orphan aged 10, found family life hard but lavished attention on his pedigree boxer dogs. Hirst's jolly face sat on tins of George Hirst's Yorkshire toffee, but at his funeral (standing room only) he decreed that there should be no music. The broad spectrum of man revealed is interesting too because from the outside there is a certain sort of masculinity that dominates sport. The branding, the bombastic music used to accompany games, especially football and rugby matches, the team names chosen - Lions v Sharks, Rhinos v Bulls (will we ever see Robins v Butterflies?) - might lead us to believe that only a particular sort of man is interested. But we know this isn't true. The gentle, shy, Verity was adored. Vaughan, who cried as he resigned the captaincy, suffered with anxiety. Sutcliffe had his cricket shirts made with specially-ordered Thai silk, greased down his hair and splashed his flannels with eau-de-cologne. But what to do with this information? This year's County Championship begins on April 5 - the earliest ever - and the university games start on Saturday. Cricket is under pressure - Test attendances outside this country are worrying, four Pakistanis and one Englishman have been imprisoned for spot-fixing, Allen Stanford, the brief darling of the England and Wales Cricket Board, faces years in an American jail after being convicted of running a $7 billion ponzi scheme. And cricket has to contend with a London Olympic summer with a side-course of European Championship. Perhaps it should rebrand itself, as the game that encompasses all colours of the masculine spectrum - from Hirst to Vaughan and back again - as well, of course, as the feminine.