Nick Bendel
Cricket- to thine ownself be true
October 8th 2008 06:52
Meanwhile, since Sport: The Australian Disease last covered the format, even more fixtures and tournaments have been dreamed up by giddy administrators. The Australian international season will now be ushered in by a match between the national team and the hallowed Australian Cricketers’ Association All-Stars, while in 2009, Australia, India and South Africa will do battle in Twenty20’s first ever tri-series. Tellingly, a window has yet to be allocated for this so-called “super series”, because the three participating countries have overloaded their schedules with so many meaningless fixtures that it has thus far proved impossible to find. Presumably, though, a block of time will somehow be manufactured, if only because a lot of money is riding on it. One can only wonder where it will all end- certainly not at any logical position, because as far as Twenty20 is concerned, we have long since passed into the realms of madness.
Yet remarkably, as the game enthusiastically sells its soul to the highest bidder, a confluence of circumstances has allowed a test tour, with all the traditional values it entails, to take centre stage in the cricketing world. Thanks to the cancellation of the Champions Trophy and the postponement of the Twenty20 Champions League, no top-level cricket is currently taking place. All eyes have therefore been focussed on Australia’s visit to India.
From the moment that the tourists landed just over a fortnight ago, the sense of anticipation has been keen, and continued to grow by the day. And while most of that anticipation has come from the two nations’ supporters, the amount of interest being shown by fans- and players- from other countries should not be underestimated. For what this test series is promising is something that no contrived limited overs tournament can hope to deliver: acute- and memorable- drama.
The glory of a competitive test series is that it provides all the depth and tension and emotion of an intricately crafted work of literature. The characters enthral, their foibles, heartaches and triumphs fascinate, so that in much the same way that it hurts to have to put down a good book, one feels a wrench that the day’s play or the match itself should have to come to an end. The best series capture the imagination and live long in the memory, just like the greatest classics. Lovers of the game can talk as reverently and expansively about the 2005 Ashes, the 2001 Border-Gavaskar Trophy and the 1960-61 Frank Worrell Trophy as a scholar would of Hamlet. A Twenty20 match, however, is nothing more than a comic strip, providing a short burst of entertainment that will most likely be forgotten the moment the next one comes along.
Since the turn of the century, India and Australia have established a rivalry that Sachin Tendulkar believes to be even greater than that between India and Pakistan. This bold claim has nothing to do with the 20 or 50 over battles that they have fought, but the four intense test series that the two countries have participated in. India 2001 is remembered for the hosts’ extraordinary comeback; Australia 2003-4 is remembered for Steve Waugh’s farewell; India 2004 is remembered for the visitors’ conquest of their final frontier; and Australia 2007-8 is remembered for the controversial Sydney test. The important thing is that they are remembered. All have been highly competitive and combative series, with the result that all have been dramatic, and all memorable. Who, by contrast, can possibly remember the last four one-day series that India and Australia have contested?
To merely reminisce about recent Border-Gavaskar showdowns is to understand how magnificent cricket can be. It is also to lament the degrading state that the sport has chosen to accept. Most supporters would probably agree that there is a place for the shorter forms of the game. After all, they are capable of providing genuine- if superficial- enjoyment, whilst attracting new fans and earning significant revenues. They must not, however, be regarded as the equal of test cricket, but complements, existing principally to highlight its greatness. Fewer of these limited overs matches would help to redress the balance. They would also make the limited overs matches more meaningful, and thus more exciting. And if these matches were more exciting, they would, in turn, compel people to ponder how much more satisfying five days of quality cricket could be.
Such considerations are of great importance, because in these changing times, the sport’s survival is uncertain. What is needed in cricket today is not more money- the game is already swimming in it, and in danger of drowning. What is needed in cricket today is cricket. There is no need for another Champions this or Super that; there is no need for more colourful clothing or blaring music; there is no need for jaded players to be dispatched to Malaysia or Canada. What is needed to ensure the sport’s survival is not ersatz cricket, but real cricket, of the kind that Australia and India are about to play. Somebody at the ICC needs to assume the role of Hercules and confront the Hydra before it is too late.
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