It’s Just Not Cricket

The question is where will it all end?

We are seeing the sports that we – well those of us over a certain age – have watched for years being constantly the victims of “Innovation.”

The reasons for these “innovations” we are often told is to make the sport appeal to the younger generation. Yet what many of the Innovators fail to realise is they are in fact alienating the older generations, those who actually can afford to go and watch sport.

The 1984 Olympic Games were one of the first where we saw the broadcaster edit highlights to music, and that in itself lifted the performances to another level. It was as if sport and music were always meant to go together. Not long after music started to be a major feature at live events. Basketball has thrived on music helping enhance the live atmosphere, and in truth has probably done it better than any other sport.

What other sports that have tried this have failed to realise is it takes planning. Choosing appropriate tunes to keep the crowd pumped. It is an art form, and takes skilled DJs to know just what to play, and when. It also takes dynamic and lively announcers to accompany the music. Lachy Reid at the Perth Wildcats is without doubt the leader in Western Australia by a country mile.

With the dawn of the IPL, the Big Bash League and International T20 matches the musical element came to Cricket. For those who love unorthodox cricket and in small doses it proved successful. To many of the traditionalists, it was abhorrent. To those who simply loved cricket, and wanted the game to thrive they were prepared to put up with it, if it meant the game could grow and be financially viable.

Other sports have started following this line with mixed results, for example Rugby Union and at the FIH Pro League games field Hockey where it is questionable as to whether it has been a success.

The Innovators have also now started tinkering with well established and understood rules. Once again some with a degree of success and others where the “innovative new rules” have been a disaster, and added little to the spectacle.

Cricket used to stand in the world for all that was good, for courtesy and fair play. To reflect this the phrase “It’s just not cricket” was used when someone or something was unfair or dishonest.

It should probably come as no surprise that this is now an outdated phrase, as cricket itself has lowered its once lofty high standards. We have seen match-fixing, spot-betting and ball-tampering. All have clearly impacted on cricket’s moral standing.

Instead of trying to regain the moral high ground by insisting that all who play adhere strictly to the code of years gone by, those in charge choose to “innovate” instead.

It was inevitable that we would one day see advertising on the shirts and jumpers of Test cricketers. As there are bills and wages to pay. As hard as this was to accept for some, it has in the main been done tastefully.

Far from tasteful and the final straw has to be the suggestion that this Summer’s Ashes series in England could see players wearing numbers on their backs as well as their surnames emblazoned across their shoulders. Why?

To make the game more appealing to the youth, with a limited attention span.

This is all very well in T20, which is essentially an adult version of tip-and-run. It is bearable in One Day Internationals, as if players are going to don coloured clothing the sanctity of real cricket has already been lost. However to bring Test cricket to such a level is unacceptable.

One of the joys as a youngster when going to watch the cricket was trying to identify players by their gait, their mannerisms and what they wore. Some players were bare-headed no matter what the weather, others would wear a floppy white sunhat and some the traditional cricket cap.

Watching a team in the field one would glance at the scoreboard when a ball was fielded to see what number had chased the ball to the boundary. You would then glance at your scorecard and the batting order to work out who it was who saved a certain boundary.

No longer will young fans have to watch games and learn the little idiosyncrasies that batsman and bowlers have that make each stand apart, and make them instantly recognisable from the other side of the boundary. Movements, that generations have then gone back to school to ape when playing with their friends. No longer will they need to follow the game as closely, for there emblazoned on the player’s back will be his name, and some fatuous number which only has some obtuse link to the player wearing it.

Ironically, The Ashes were created after Australia won its first Test Match on English soil in 1882 at the Oval. A mock obituary appeared in the Sporting Times stating that English cricket had died, and “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”

If we are to see numbers and names on the backs of jumpers at Edgbaston, Lords, Headingley, Old Trafford and the Oval cricket may not have died, but its soul will have.

All that will be left will be a commercial husk of what was at one time the pinnacle of all games. A game played by gentleman as well as the working man, but played within a code of conduct and laws which were not to be broken. All of this because the game was bigger and more important than any individual; although a few thought otherwise.

One, the greats WG Grace would probably not be turning in his grave as he loved to take advantage of a commercial opportunity, however many more of his ilk will be turning more than Shane Warne’s leg break to Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1983!

It will indeed be a very sad day for Test Cricket. Quite how it will enhance the game is hard to fathom. For this traditionalist it is a step too far, an illegal delivery and definitely not Test Cricket.