Test cricket’s demise has been greatly exaggerated

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 7 Jan 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Australia's captain Ricky Ponting celebrates after reaching 100 on the second day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Thursday July 9, 2009. AP Photo/Jon Super

Australia's captain Ricky Ponting celebrates after reaching 100 on the second day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Thursday July 9, 2009. AP Photo/Jon Super

The 2010 Australia-Pakistan Test at the SCG will be rated as one of the most incredible matches in the long history of cricket. All those doomsayers predicting the end of Test cricket have been exposed. Test cricket, put simply, can often be – and in this case was – the greatest game of all.

Australia was bowled out for 127 on the first day after an incredible misjudgment by Ricky Ponting to bat on a pitch so green it might have been prepared for a St Patrick’s day match.

Then Pakistan got 206 runs in front.

With two wickets only to fall, Australia in their second inning were only 50 or so runs in front with only two wickets to fall. Appalling captaincy by Pakistan let David Hussey and Peter Siddle put on the fourth highest 9th wicket partnership for Australia.

Then Pakistan were bowled out 36 runs short of the what would have been the winning total.

The bare recital of these facts does not do justice to the tensions and excitement of the Test as the balance of the match shifted from one side to the other, a bit like a weather vane in a storm. At times the excitement was so intense you could sympathise with the unfortunate spectator at the original Ashes Test who unwittingly gnawed his way through the handle of his umbrella.

On the last day at the SCG, each ball created its own tension as each run was eked out. Wickets fell just when it seemed that one of the side had gained a final ascendany.

I love the Monday column in the SMH that the brilliant and incisive Paul Sheehan writes. Invariably, it is the best thing in the paper. But last Monday he missed the mark, in my opinion, with his obituary on the future of Test cricket.

His argument is that the more popular versions of cricket, especially the Twenty20 game, will (and this is my metaphor not his) act like a fast-growing poison ivy destroying the willows in the grove of Test cricket.

Like the novel, Test cricket has been written off for decades. It survives and will survive because it is the most memorable form of cricket. Crowd numbers may be down, as Sheehan points out. They may even be subject to some massaging by nervous administrators, as he claims.

But as another SMH columnist Will Swanton points out, the cricket ground for any Test extends around the world.

The great Test at the SCG (in my opinion the finest of all cricket venues) was not only watched by many thousands at the ground, many millions of listeners and viewed ‘watched’ the Test on their radios and television sets. The world, or great chunks of it, is the stadium when there is an important cricket Test being played.

There are more people ‘watching’ Test cricket around the world now than at any time in the history of the game.

The beauty of the cricket game is that all the different formats have their audience and their particular appeal. Twenty20 cricket is the game’s pulp fiction. The one-day 50 over format is a sort of detailed magazine article.

And Test cricket is the equivalent of a novel.

As we saw at the SCG, Test cricket allows for characters to establish themselves. The plot lines of the Test were as intricate as any that Charles Dickens could have devised.

And sometimes, if we are lucky, we get a denouement, again as we had at the SCG, that even Agatha Christie would have been proud to devise, so astonishing and unlikely was the final outcome until the last few minutes of play.

After the first day’s play I wrote a piece for The Roar suggesting that it was time for Ricky Ponting to declare his captain’s inning closed. To be fair to him, he captained most effectively on the last day, especially his use of Nathan Hauritz.

But his decision not to put Pakistan into bat exposed a flaw in his strategic thinking in this and other areas of play (and not for the first time) that some strong captaincy does not wipe out.

The second point to make is the team to contest the Ashes series in Australia later this year is being moulded into shape. The weak spot in the team right now is Marcus North at number 6.

I was an advocate of North being selected in the first place. Initially, he justified his selection. But he is losing form and needs to be replaced by a younger player.

My theory of selection is that teams should always have components of growth in them. Someone on the Channel 9 commentary team mentioned the possibility of Philip Hughes replacing North.

I think this is a good idea.

Shane Watson and Simon Katich need to be kept as the opening pair, at least until the Ashes series. Hughes is a gifted young player who is still finding his way at Test level, but has tremendous potential. Playing him at number 6 gives the side a player used to facing the (second) new ball and a fine player of spin bowling.

It also him to find his feet in Test cricket the way Ponting did.

Now that Australia has pulled out an astonishing victory at the SCG, the series with Pakistan has been won. The selectors can chance their arms a bit, you would think, by picking Hughes to replace North.

The rubber is dead but the Ashes series is looming up as the great challenge of 2010. The time to find out the right Australian team is now, not later this year.

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