On Cricket

“I don’t like cricket, oh no

I love it”

~ ‘Dreadlock Holiday’, by 10cc

from the album “Bloody Tourists”, 1978

Ah, summer is upon us, the cicadas are chirping, the television is uniformly terrible and people whine on Facebook about the weather, whether it is hotter or colder than their personal ideal.  Actually, that last one happens pretty much year round.  Seriously, if you want relatively uniform weather, perhaps Melbourne is not the town for you.  For the most part, summer brings good beach weather, although I don't get out to the beach as much as I would have liked in recent years (WonderWoman has a bit of an aversion). I do rather enjoy that summer also brings with it the joys of the cricket. 

Cricket is a wonderful sport.  It has all the hallmarks of a great sporting endeavour.  While I have a little difficulty with comparisons of sport with war, or even gladiatorial duels, I would say that the contest of cricket can indeed be epic.  The game is viewed by some as long periods of dull nothingness as the batsmen await the next delivery, with brief flurries of activity after the ball is delivered.  It is in these periods that plans are made, mind games are played, and men are sorted from boys.  Exquisite skills are essential, likewise endurance, but both can be rendered inert without a depth of focus that few possess.   

For the record, I should make my definition of sport clear, as opposed to games: essentially, any competitive activity where overweight, middle-aged individuals can hold their own at the highest level is not a sport, it is a game.  Football, cricket, rugby - sports.  Scrabble, tiddlywinks, darts, golf - games. *

Cricket is far better watching than that other sport that pervades our airwaves in January, tennis.  I have nothing against tennis, and can enjoy a good match as much as the next blogger, but it seems to me to be the domain of the over-privileged and spoilt at the elite level.  Perhaps that is more a perception issue than fact, but there you are.  What I can't stomach is women's tennis.  Just can't tolerate it at all.  With all the grunting that goes on, it's often like listening to asthmatic wookiees wailing on each other.  It's just unnecessary and distracting and frankly selfish of the players.  Further, one only needs to listen to one self-important "Me, me, me" press conference from a Williams sister to have a bad taste left in one's mouth.

But I digress.  Where was I?  Cricket.  When I say cricket, I am not including the fireworks, froth and pseudo-excitement of the twenty over version.  I'm unsure why they don't just call it baseball and be done with it.  Why is it that they insist on altering the very essence of a game in order to make it acceptable to the MTV generation? It seems to me that those in charge of cricket have so little faith in its appeal that they feel the need to dumb it down to such a degree.  Perhaps such people ought not to be in charge of the game at all.

It's the five day test match cricket for me.  It's the only sport that I can think of that allows time for meal breaks.  At times, five arduous days of play is unable to separate the weary combatants.

  I would happily watch every delivery of all five days of play, if it weren't for the banal dullards that barely pass for a commentary team of the television broadcasters, Channel Nine.  Half of them were employed in the Kerry Packer days of World Series Cricket in the 'seventies, and seem to have it written in their contracts that  the only way they can be extricated from their jobs is to switch the commentary box for a pine one.  Some pundits may suggest that Richie Benaud has the look of a cadaver about him already.  The addition of younger types has done nothing but decrease the depth of the shallow talent pool that already exists.  Mark Nicholas has appears to have swallowed a thesaurus, with everything being amazing, fantastic, stupendous, and incredible.  James Brayshaw, surely the least capable commentator of any sport in the country (have you heard the Triple M football commentary? It's nigh unlistenable), is jingoistic and sadly uninteresting.  As for former test cricket greats Michael Slater, Mark Taylor and Ian Healy, as astute and insightful commentators go, they make fabulous cricketers.

The commentary on the radio, specifically the ABC is often derided as "Dad's Army" type stuff, the cruel nickname of "Tobin Brothers" sometimes being unfairly bestowed on them.  I beg to differ.  It is rich and entertaining, descriptive and absorbing.  It comes, I imagine, from the medium the commentators find themselves in - when the picture that speaks a thousand words is lacking, actual words must fill the void, and the creativity, humour, knowledge and intellect of the commentariat must come forth.  It does so on the ABC.  It dismally fails to do so on Channel Nine.  Without the need to fill a space, Nine's commentators have become lazy, hurling pointless platitudes, urging viewers to spend money on useless memorabilia ("Endorsed by Cricket Australia!" as if that is some kind of selling point) and committing the worst possible crime for a commentator - stating the screaming, bleeding obvious.  It's turgid stuff.  Worse still is the television network's arrogant penchant for delaying their telecast by some seconds in order to make listening to the far superior radio commentary whilst watching the TV broadcast difficult.  Difficult but not impossible, thankfully.

I would imagine that Cricket Australia has a degree of control over the broadcaster's choices.  If they wish to appeal to a wider audience, perhaps they need to make a few prudent decisions about those who form the face of the cricket telecast, other than the players themselves.  But, as stated earlier, those in charge don't always seem to have the very best interests of the sport in mind.  More's the pity.  I really hope they don't kill the sport entirely.  Summer just wouldn't be the same without it.

* There is far more to say about what is and isn’t a sport, and more controversies to be had no doubt. I will expand on it a bit further next time…

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