The extraordinary circumstances surrounding the all-too-brief Test series between India and England caught us all on the hop. We had to find a way of praising an England team who lost. We had to find an appropriate way of saying, “Well done everyone and never mind about the result.” We can ransack our thesaurus of modern sporting clichés as much as we like, but there is nothing there that helps. We need to turn to an earlier edition.

England played up. England played up and played the game. They played up like anything and gave us all a reason to be glad that cricket is part of our lives and that England cricket matters to us.

It was a series in which we had to come to terms with the dizzying concept that taking part was more important than victory.

For years, sport has been trying to ditch its uncomfortable and outmoded moral agenda. Yes, winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing; yes, sport doesn't build character, it reveals character; yes, the deepest morality of sport is the pursuit of excellence.

And though there is truth in all these things, this recent lightning-swift England cricket tour informed us in the most unequivocal fashion that there is another dimension to sport, and it's something to do with turning up and doing your damnedest, and losing, if you have to lose, with precisely the right mixture of reluctance and grace.

England rightly abandoned the one-day series after the atrocities in Mumbai. But they came back to play the two-Test series, and turning up was a victory in itself. Anyone who tells terrorists that we are not terrified is striking a blow for us all.

England were hopelessly underprepared, with some of the players in great mental confusion about the should-we-shouldn't-we question. India were cock-a-hoop, having just beaten Australia in a Test series. But England played their guts out and made a great fight of it. They might have won the first Test instead of losing, and they might have been wiped out in the second but fought back. Those pusillanimous people who said, “Great gesture, shame about the cricket” clearly didn't watch it.

England came second, and there are matters arising from this that are worth noting for the future. But right now, what matters is that they went and, having gone, played better than we had a right to expect. Cricket was suddenly reinstated to its old role of moral example: a sermon in flannels.

The series showed us that whether we like it or not, sport can be a force for good, that fulfilling your obligations with a full heart is important, that sometimes results matter a good deal less than certain other things. Playing well is good, but playing up matters as well.

We have to revitalise this archaic phrase because it has become an archaic concept in sport. All the same, it is something we need to deal with in these exceptional circumstances.

Star-struck by true racing great

A triumph for Kauto Star in the King George on Boxing Day: three victories in three years, just like Desert Orchid. At once my mind goes back to the bizarre moment when I actually sat on Dessie's back.

Dessie was long retired by then, but getting in shape for an appearance at Kempton by leading out the string for David Elsworth, his old trainer.

Elsworth, eccentric and impulsive, was holding the old grey horse's reins and talking hard, for Elsworth talks much in the way that Dessie used to run. And he asked me, on a sudden whim, if I would like to sit on the horse. No horseman could say no, obviously. From nowhere, Elsworth produced a child's riding hat, which sat on the top of my head like a velvet pimple, and legged me up into the saddle. I took up the reins and put my feet into the irons automatically, sat up straight as a horseman should - and, well, wow. There is an extraordinary contact, almost like electricity, in the first exchange between horse and rider. I got on a horse that was about 16 hands: by the time I was sitting on top, he was a good 20 hands. He felt - he believed himself to be - much, much bigger than he was. I felt an instant feeling of boundless ambition. The message that came down the reins into my hands was straightforward enough: “Let's go!” I felt a twitch in my heels, but somehow controlled a temptation to kick on and let loose the mighty engine within. A moment or two later, I slipped off: for this was more tourism than equestrianism.

But I knew something of Dessie that a million fans will never know in quite the same way: that this really was one hell of a horse. To get even close to Dessie, Kauto Star must be something utterly extraordinary himself.

Essence of sport can be found on oche

At this time of the year, any person with sporting blood in the veins can be found staring glassy-eyed at the darts. The Ladbrokes.com PDC World Darts Championship wraps itself lovingly around the Christmas holidays and, time and again, it becomes the default option when zapping the channels in search of sporting action.

The annual fascination with darts is at least initially ironic. You revel in the triumphant way that darts has gone downmarket. You marvel at the audience and wonder how you would cope with an evening in its midst: reader, do you have it in you to sing while waving a pint of lager in the air, or would you, too, fail the Amarillo Test?

And you look at the unathletic figures of the players, all with faces you probably won't see at Royal Ascot this year, and you smile at your superiority to it all while watching a couple of legs. But then you find yourself switching back for another dose, unable to resist a furtive but growing enthralment.

Eventually, you are watching because you urgently need to know who wins and who loses, and that is what sport means. You find yourself intrigued, and finally slightly mesmerised by the question of who will hit the double when he needs to. You are caught up in the oldest question of sport: who is stronger when it matters?

Darts is an almost forensic examination of competitive nerve, one that is measured with minute but clearly visible exactness. On one side of the wire you find triumph, on the other, disaster. It's all in the pressure of the fingers, the repeatability of the action, the steadiness of the head: in short, cojones.

We find ourselves staring at darts because it is the distilled, pared-down essence of sport.

The cruel sea

Rum to think, as the Christmas feasting continues, of those wild and lonely figures competing in the Vendée Globe single-handed round-the-world yacht race. They will have broken out their special supplies, had some kind of mild treat, a slice of pudding, a quarter-bot of champagne, perhaps, exchanged messages with loved ones - and then turned back to their chosen companion, the ocean.

Don't feel sorry for them in their self-elected loneliness. As Dame Ellen MacArthur said to me: “It's your choice. You just get on with it.” And remember that it's not fear of death that keeps them at it, it's love of victory.

Their constant vigilance is needed not to keep safe, but to go fast. The just-taking-part is clearly an aspect of the challenge and every completion is a kind of victory - but at bottom each sailor is not battling the elements, but each other. The real drama is not the cruel-sea stuff, but in the race. It's not mountaineering, it's sport.