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by Anthony Sharwood

09 Feb 05:30pm

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Filed under: Cricket, Sport

28 comments

Call the RSPCA. Alert PETA. Get the anti-whaling boats to steam north from Antarctica and stop this mindless slaughter.

Celebrating taking candy from a baby. Picture: Ray Titus

Cricket is on its last legs. And to think, this shocking butchery of our national sport is no longer even taking place in the name of science.

Before the summer, we suspected the opposition were crap. By mid December, we knew it. Discussion over. Yet here we are in mid February still prodding and poking at the carcasses of West Indian and Pakistani cricket.

Yup, they’re dead, all right. Cold as a cucumber. Not even Lord Monckton could be paid to find a pulse.

As I bash my keyboard in disgust, the Windies have slumped to 8-for-bugger all in the one-dayer in Adelaide. It’s yet another no-contest in a summer of self-destruction. Suicide as spectacle.

To be truly relevant, international cricket has do at least one of the following two things:

It has to provide a contest between two reasonably competent teams. Failing that, it must entertain.

Both Pakistan and the Windies have totally failed on both counts, which is just one reason why the Big Bash (interstate T20 competition) has been the hit of the summer.

None of this is to rubbish Test or One Day cricket in favour of T20. That’s a debate for another day.

The simple fact is, this summer of cricket has been flatter than the Nullarbor. What, you might well ask, was Cricket Australia thinking when it decided to serve up the two worst nations of cricket’s Big Eight as the summer’s main fare?

I love cricket and I love watching Australia play, anytime, anywhere. But really, things are getting so desperate, I’m thinking of buying one of those incredibly rare lithographs Tony Greig is hocking. Geez, better get in soon. There’s only 7,392 left.

By the way, it appears almost certain that those Minke whales down Antarctica way have baleen plates and really thick blubber. Better harpoon another 100 or so just to be sure, though.

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431Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself

390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin

336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer

313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking

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231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.

231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

28 comments

Show oldest | newest first

- Lachlan says:
  
  01:16pm | 11/02/10
  
  If one day cricket had been declared dead whenever Australia had demolished another home series, then it would have been dead ten years ago.
  
  Let’s not forget though that Pakistan cricket has been in crisis, and the Windies have at least 6-7 of their first choice players out with injury at the moment.
  
  Also, before we write off the whole summer, the last two test matches against the Windies were excellent and the 2nd test against Pakistan was amazing.
  
  Reply
- dave says:
  
  10:13am | 11/02/10
  
  I used to like cricket. I hate 20 twenty with a passion. I see it as nothing more than joke cricket. Theres also too much cricket. Once upon a time it was a nice summer past time, now we are continually bombarded with new formats continuous and continuous overseas tours, by the time our season gets here we’ve already had our fill. Crick has gone the way of most other sports, its not fun, its a business, a business controlled by the media industry to generate revenue.
  
  I used to like the “team” now all i see is a bunch of self serving glory hounds after marketing and publicity opportunities. Perhaps its not the game at all thts in trouble, perhaps its the fact that the new batch of commentators and media in general focus on individuals rather than what the team as a whole is doing. People can no longer identify with the Australian team as its now full of pretencious sports prats.
  
  Reply
- R Crawford says:
  
  06:36am | 11/02/10
  
  All this is patching up what is basically a very boring longwinded game.
  
  Reply
- Lily says:
  
  02:36pm | 10/02/10
  
  “To be truly relevant, international cricket has do at least one of the following two things:
  
  It has to provide a contest between two reasonably competent teams. Failing that, it must entertain.”
  
  Well…..Chris Gayle’s ridiculous glamour-girl sunglasses in the one dayer at Adelaide were pretty bloody entertaining!!!
  
  Reply
- Ed says:
  
  02:20pm | 10/02/10
  
  Can we have a story on how long it will take journalists to understand that they don’t change the administration of sport now matter how many times they cover the same tired story about how one day cricket is dead. The administration make the decisions and it will be no surprise that one day cricket…never dies.
  
  Reply
- Brian says:
  
  01:40pm | 10/02/10
  
  50 overs cricket - team that bats first has 75-25 winning ratio advantage .......make it 25 overs x 4 sessions.
  
  Reply
- Corey Neame says:
  
  01:38pm | 10/02/10
  
  Anthony Sharwood makes some valid points, but here are my viewpoints:
  
  Apart from the first Test against the Windies at the Gabba, the other 5 Test matches were quite competitive. Australia had to work hard to win these matches, in particular the SCG Test against Pakistan, where they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat after Pakistan somehow managed to lose the unloseable Test. The result of this game (and maybe even the series) may well have been different had Kamran Akmal not dropped Hussey 3 times when the Australians were trying to set their opposition a decent 4th innings target, but that’s history now.
  
  And the West Indies definitely improved their performances in the Adelaide and Perth Tests after getting walloped in the first Test inside 3 days.
  
  The one-dayers have been disappointing, mostly because of the one-sided nature of the contests, but I didn’t see fans complaining and not attending in 2000-01 when Australia won all 10 of their one-dayers against the West Indies and Zimbabwe. People still turned up then, so why are they not now? And, every now and then, when I watch old World Series Classics on Foxtel, and they show Australia playing Sri Lanka, for example, who were downright awful back in the late 80s, did the fans stay away? No they did not.
  
  Sure, one-dayers come sometimes get boring during certain periods of the match, but the beauty of this form of the game is that it captures the contrasting aspects of both Test and Twenty20 matches, and can still throw up unpredictable scenarios. These are the reasons why I still enjoy watching a one-day game over the Mickey Mouse slog-fest that is Twenty20 cricket any day.
  
  One-day cricket has had far too many tinkering with the rules over the years. Just leave it as it is!!! If you start breaking it down into blocks of 25 overs, as has been discussed by several people who have commented on this article, then it becomes too much like Twenty20!!!
  
  This summer, I believe it has had more to do with the quality of the opposition than the ‘death of the one-day game’. Pakistan have a very talented side, but they are either very hot or very cold. And they definitely showed more of the latter in their matches against the Aussies. Plus, with the likes of Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Bravo, Taylor, Barath, etc, all missing from their current one-day line-up, the West Indies just don’t have the cattle to be able to adequately compete with Australia on a consistent basis in this form of the game at present.
  
  I think when England and Sri Lanka come to our shores next year, the crowds will definitely be up for the one-dayers, because (hopefully) the quality of the opposition will be stronger.
  
  But, in conclusion, it is a very difficult balancing act, and the cricket administrators have to try to create a suitable balance of Tests, One-Dayers and Twenty20 matches in a tour itinerary without overkilling any of them, and at the same time, preventing the public’s interest from waning.
  
  Reply
- Mr Subramanian says:
  
  12:09pm | 10/02/10
  
  Three Test series would be fine, if there was a decent spacing between them: the compressed schedule of Test matches nowadays gives teams no chance to get their players fit, to adjust their tactics, for everyone to recover and look forward to the next one with anticipation rather than a sense of “what, already?”
  
  ODIs are surviving on the cachet associated with the World Cup: once the T20 World Cup gains momentum, the 50 over format is going to struggle even more…
  
  Reply
- Adam MacLeod says:
  
  11:25am | 10/02/10
  
  Once of the reasons why one-day cricket is failing is because the teams are not actually playing for anything. They’re all dead rubbers…..friendlies (as they’re called in soccer). There would be more drama and excitement if there was a sense of purpose behind the games, other than increasing sales of fried chicken. The old triangular series with finals was slightly better. However making a bigger deal out of one-day rankings (having a sort of league table throughout the year) would be better still.
  
  Reply
- stephen says:
  
  11:01am | 10/02/10
  
  T20’s worse than indoor cricket, and if yer wanna joke on indoor cricket, put on Kath and Kim.
  
  Reply
- Timmo says:
  
  10:34am | 10/02/10
  
  Well Australia got through again and we had a few bad games in the tests that I saw. I thought Pakistan played fairly well considering. It must be hard for them to play here when most of the crowd is pro Aus. But it would have been good to see them get up. Very good bowling from them and had the Aussies on the ropes a few times. I thought a good competition really. But I am looking forward to Sri Lanka Arriving next year. They are great to watch and a good players and the English are usually consistent players also. Although Aust. won the day I say hats off to the Pakistanis also. Better luck next time around. The commentators drive me crazy, I must say.
  
  Reply
- SLF says:
  
  09:23am | 10/02/10
  
  The opposition has been poor in the ODI, but in the tests it was closer than the results suggest. Part of the beauty of test cricket I guess.
  
  Kamran dropping Hussey 3 times, Ameer dropping Ponting on 0 where things that changes dramatically the result of two tests. It has actually been a fairly entertaining summer of cricket, and looking purely at the results kind of misses the point.
  
  Reply
- Justin says:
  
  08:18am | 10/02/10
  
  Yes the opposition has been poor, but the structure of one dayers is a big contributor - at least the tests had their moments & their twists & turns.
  
  Why would you remove the straight first 15 overs of fielding restrictions & replace them with 10 overs & 2 blocks of 5 overs, & then allow the fielding team take their 5 over block in overs 11-15? That’s what happens 99% of the time, so how’s that supposed to reduce the middle innings dead zone?
  
  Likewise, the last 10 overs takes care of themselves in the risk department - they don’t need fielding restriction help. Change it so that power plays 2 & 3 must be taken between overs 21-40 & you will genuinely break up the dead zone.
  
  Reply
Glen says:

09:20am | 10/02/10

Yeah I agree with that

You can guarantee PP1 will be taken overs 11-15 and PP2 will be sometime after over 43.

I think the other option is to reduce the maximum number of fielders allowed outside the circle to 4 at all times (and less during power plays)
- BMJ says:
  
  08:08am | 10/02/10
  
  We need the tri-nation tournament back.
  
  This way the two visiting teams can build up confidence against each other. This is just a pummeling. It’s boring.
  
  Reply
- AFR says:
  
  07:32am | 10/02/10
  
  Another day, another ODI cricket bashing article. How about some original material?
  
  Reply
- six and out says:
  
  05:24am | 10/02/10
  
  gotta worry about a sport that needs rejigging of the rules constantly to keep it interesting… not a good sign
  
  Reply
Eric says:

02:31pm | 10/02/10

Errr .... like the AFL rejigs the rules every year and the NRL rejigs the rules every year and rugby rejigs the rules every year and golf changes the clubs you are allowed to use every year ..... yep: all them games are in strife
Bill says:

07:43am | 10/02/10

six and out,

The Rugby League, the Rugby Union, the AFL all ‘rejig’ the rules, every year, it’s about improving the product to deliver satisfaction to the fans. Maybe all of these codes are also in dire consequences, if this is the determinant, as you suggest.
- Callum says:
  
  09:54pm | 09/02/10
  
  Time to go the way of England, and reduce the game to 40 overs.
  We also need to split it into 2 divisions.
  
  Something needs to be done
  
  Reply
- Paul says:
  
  09:09pm | 09/02/10
  
  I know this isn’t an ODI v T20 debate, just wait til next summer. Everyone will forget these headlines. The MCG will get close to 50k for the England ODIs, especially if they fall in the holiday period.
  
  Are we surprised that the smallest crowd on record saw today’s match? It was basically over at 2.26pm (AEDT) - once Gayle went out there wasn’t much hope, and why would you pay $30odd to go and see a couple of hours of cricket in the mid 30s? Had the Windies piled on 320 - the Radelaide Oval would have seen about 15k I reckon.
  
  And, if we hosted the World Cup, we’d be filling grounds. We just want some competition. Agree with Bill, six ball matches coming to a stadium near you.
  
  Reply
Adam MacLeod says:

11:34am | 10/02/10

Good point Paul. It was actually 38 degrees in town, and the Windies were 4 for 16 before I’d finished my lunch break. Now why would I want to head down to the adelaide oval after work.
- awick27 says:
  
  09:00pm | 09/02/10
  
  I argee that this some summer hasn’t been that exciting. But I think next summer, with Sri Lanka and England will be much better
  
  Reply
- jamie says:
  
  08:34pm | 09/02/10
  
  by the way CA doesn’t program the summer, the ICC does it and it happens in 5 years blocks. This block has about a year to go…
  
  Reply
- jamie says:
  
  08:30pm | 09/02/10
  
  and next year the poms will be here and the grounds will be sold out for every match.
  
  Cricket dead? Hardly.
  
  Reply
- Bill says:
  
  07:01pm | 09/02/10
  
  What, we don’t assist the other teams in the competition to develop their ranks by playing against the best? What happens when our greats retire and we are again no longer world leaders. Are we no longer entitled to play against anyone else because we are sub-standard? What is it with journalists and the cricket this year? Test crickets is dead, one day cricket is dead, it’s T20 or it’s nothing…pretty soon we will be down to just one over of cricket from each team and who ever scored the most for thoes six balls wins.
  
  Reply
- Aitch B says:
  
  06:31pm | 09/02/10
  
  I agree with some reservations, Anthony. The one-dayers are as boring as bat s**t and the format is in need of a massive shake up. Four innings of 20 overs will fix that. However, the subtleties of the test match were evident many times during both series and I found them most enjoyable.
  
  Having said that, why the hell can’t we have a full blown five test series against the Kiwis? The Aussies tend to stutter a bit when they come along and I think it’s time they were given the opportunity to have a fair dinkum crack at us… not the piddling 3 test series we tend to have.
  
  Agree with your sentiments re: the Minke whales….. bloody disgraceful!
  
  By the way….. I hear they’ve just found baleen plates in Mark Cosgrove. I doubt that the harpoons would go through the blubber, though!
  
  Reply
Tim says:

09:34am | 10/02/10

Exactly.
Two innings each of twenty overs would be far more entertaining.
As for 20-20, sure lots of people have been attending but has there even been one close and interesting match?
Its either the opening team makes a massive score and the second team get bowled out early, or the opening team get bowled out cheaply and the second team cruises to an easy victory.