Let me preface this by saying that my interest in cricket is pretty limited. I occasionally used to watch it on the TV (when I had a TV, which is now a long time past), particularly if the tail was wagging on an otherwise lost innings, and every few years I go to a day of the Boxing Day Test with a friend or two, mostly as a social thing.
At such events, we will drink much beer and try to endure the heat as best we can, it being summer.
It was my turn in the beer queue yesterday at the MCG around 1pm or so when I mentioned to the bloke standing behind me: ‘I think we will have an outcome today.’
His reply was: ‘I feel sorry for my dad – he has tickets for tomorrow.’
Yesterday being day two of what ostensibly is a five day test match.
I was right. The game ended when an English batsman hit a four around 5.30pm, taking England past the 175 run target it needed to defeat Australia.
That an outcome was likely was obvious to everyone, even those like me who do not have great love for the World Game (I annoy fans of soccer when I describe cricket thus), several hours before the eventual conclusion.
I am not too familiar with what conditions cause a wicket to be particularly favourable to bowlers, but when the first two innings end on day one with both teams bowled out, you might have to conclude that it was very much a bowler’s wicket.
What I could observe is that the weather (a maximum of 21 degrees celsius) was quite mild and pleasant – which might have impacted adversely on beer sales. Mild weather also means that when a team is out on the field rather than batting, they do not get as exhausted as they would when the day is sweltering hot, as when I last watched the Boxing Day Test a few years ago when South Africa toured.
On that particular occasion, Australia batted until tea time, giving the South African team enough time to get exhausted on the field, before declaring and sending them in to bat and to get slaughtered by our very fresh bowlers, who had spent the day resting up in the airconditioned comfort of their dressing rooms, spared by the declaration from the inconvenience of having to bat in such warm weather.
Mild weather levels the playing field in favour of the team that is bowling.
It also means that the game can move much more quickly.
But that the wickets fell so quickly that a test match ended within two days rather than five, and not for the first time in this series (the First Test also ended in two days, but with Australia winning), did make me wonder. This is very unusual.
It has gotten even me thinking about why it is so.
Commentators for many years have speculated as to whether One Day Cricket (a version of the game where each team faces 50 overs) was influencing the way that cricketers were playing in Test matches, particularly if they were more likely to go for reckless high scoring shots whilst batting. Limited overs requires fast scoring and taking more risks than the more strategic and cautious approach needed for a Test match.
Recent years has seen the introduction of an even shorter and faster version of the game – 20-20 cricket, in the form of the Big Bash league in Australia and more significantly in the Indian Premier League. Most of the world’s best cricketers of every nation play for part of the year in the Indian Premier League. It is fast and exciting (as much as cricket can get) and very lucrative for the players.
I firmly believe that there is a direct causality between this current failure of Test matches to last out their entire five day duration and the participation of most top international players in the 20-20 competition as a regular part of their top level careers.
Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed my day out yesterday, even though I was sitting in the Southern Stand which is rather too cramped for comfort compared to the Members’ Reserve (making me regret that I did not ask for favours 30 years ago to get onto the MCC waiting list). The weather was very pleasant, the game went at a great and engaging pace, and the Barmy Army was appropriately… Barmy. So did 92,000 other people, and 95,000 on Boxing Day – the crowds do love to turn out at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for an Ashes Test.
But this was not Cricket – or at least not Test Cricket as we know it.
There are people who were planning to go on Days 3, 4 and hopefully 5. Those days will not be happening, and Cricket Australia will suffer a financial hit, as will the casual staff who otherwise would be selling overpriced beer and snack foods to people like yours truly. The same happened in the First Test, which was similarly a two day watershed but with the Australians winning.
I suspect that this might be a turning point in the sport. Where Test matches start to regularly end less than halfway through due to the way they are played, rather than abandoned due to the weather (as sometimes happens where there is unseasonably heavy rain), this will have an ongoing financial impact on the game. That will cause the governing bodies of international cricket to take notice.
There possibly will be two avenues of action. One could be to limit the ability of Test cricketers to participate in 20-20 and other limited over cricket. The other would be to downplay the importance of Test cricket and reduce the number of Test matches are played, in order to reduce the exposure to possible financial losses.
I am curious to see what transpires.
Lost For Words! 