Will the Big Bash be a blast, or get blasted?

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 19 Dec 2011 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Will the Big Bash be a blast, or get blasted? + enlarge image

Sydney Thunders' David Warner celebrates his century during their Big Bash League match against the Melbourne Stars at the MCG (AAP Image/Mal Fairclough)

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Sometime into Brad Haddin’s forceful innings in the opening match of the Big Bash tournament he opened his stance and with elegance and power smashed a ball over the bowler’s head for a six.

As the ball soared away into the night sky the roars of the crowd grew louder and louder the further the hit carried.

As I watched this I realised that the crowd was really following the contest. And they were appreciating the skills being revealed by the batsmen (Haddin particularly) and the bowlers.

Stuart MacGill got a huge roar of approval when he bowled Matthew Hayden with a sharply breaking delivery.

The comedian Robin Williams once described Test cricket as baseball on valium. The Big Bash is more like baseball on steroids.

David Warner, in his fantastic knock against the Melbourne Stars, belted 102 runs off 52 balls. He hit an astonishing six fours and six sixes. About a quarter of all the balls he faced went to the boundary, and an eighth went over the fence.

In the earlier era Babe Ruth was nicknamed ‘the sultan of the swat’ for his home-run hitting talents. Warner is a similar type of hitter. But in a cricket context, the impressive aspect of this Warner’s hitting is that he seldom slogs.

As the cricket commentators might have said and will say, virtually all the Warner boundary hits were real cricket shots.

The hits down the ground against Shane Warne (who claimed, correctly, that he felt he was bowling well) were beautiful strikes. There was a textbook placement of the feet, the full face of the bat and a lovely, straight, powerful follow-through.

I am an ancient, as many readers of The Roar will have noticed. Many years ago I had the pleasure of sitting on the Hill at the world’s best cricket ground, the SCG, and watching the great Neil Harvey belt around a good South Australian bowling attack in a Sheffield Shield match.

The highest praise I can endow on Warner is that watching him on Saturday night (from a box in that same Hill area of yesteryear) brought back memories of Harvey’s batting.

There was the same stocky build and left-hand stance. The same aggressive, cocky approach to all of the  bowlers. The same attitude that every ball was a potential four or six. There was the same twinkle-toed footwork. And the same flashing, slashing shots off the front foot and back foot.

The point here is that Twenty20 cricket is real cricket. It is not an equivalent of, say, Sevens Rugby, which is a different thing essentially to the longer version of the game. Twenty20 is condensed cricket, the way condensed soup is real soup with the water taken out. Similarly, the longeurs of the longer forms of cricket are removed from the Twenty20 mode.

And from the evidence of the first two matches (admittedly a small sample), real cricketers will flourish playing this form of the game. It is a batsman’s game, in that bowlers are restricted to only four overs while batsmen can play out an entire innings.

The longer form of the game, for its part, is really a bowler’s game, in that you have to dismiss 20 batsmen for an outright win.

Aside from the inherent but generalised objection from cricket devotees to any radical changes to cricket schedules and formats, the argument against the Twenty20 format is that it represents a triumph of commercialism over the integrity of a real sport. There is an element of truth in this argument. But it needs to be remembered that cricket started as a gambling and commercial game.

The earlier tours such as that of W.G.Grace to Australia in the late 19th century were commercial ventures, with the money going to the entrepreneurs and the playing star. Grace was brought out to Australia by the Lilywhite company as an alternative when their most lucrative talent, Charles Dickens, took ill.

And it was the new technology of the railways in the late 19th century that led to the development of the country cricket circuit. Pay television, a latter-day equivalent of the railways system, has provided the platform for new developments in all the mainstream sports, especially cricket.

My objection or worry is whether the shortened form of the game will act like a type of lantana weed and smother out longer forms, especially Test cricket. It is imperative that Cricket Australia use the Twenty20 game and formats like the Big Bash to provide the income and resources (in terms of player development and crowd interest, for instance) to increase interest in Test cricket.

There is also the consideration about how ‘tribal’ the designated teams will be. Will youngsters and their parents go to watch the Melbourne Stars when Shane Warne finally gives away bowling? Will the appeal of the Sydney Thunder wane when David Warner is not playing? Or will these teams, and all the others in the tournament, develop a following that transcends the players in a particular side?

The relatively poor crowd turnout at Sydney and Melbourne gives the marketing gurus a challenge that needs to be met if the tournament is to be a continuing success.

At the game itself I must admit that it was difficult to follow what was actually happening, in terms of runs per over and the other important stats in this form of cricket. The main scoreboard was virtually taken over with advertisements. The side scoreboard on this main board was not particularly informative. Nor was the small scoreboard on the side.

My suggestion is for the ground announcer to give out the details of where the game is at after every over.

The players should have their names on their clothing, too, so spectators can tell who they are.

Nor do we need (non-metaphorical) fireworks before the start of the innings. At the SCG, the game had to be held up for a short time for the smoke to clear.

I am sure that the marketing people will fine tune these matters as the tournament progresses. What they need to understand is that the format stands and falls on the quality of the cricket. The game’s the thing.

The fireworks and the cheer girls and all the other hoopla is just that – hoopla. It soon palls. But performances like Warner’s superb innings remain in the memory and will bring supporters back for more.

The Big Bash needs quality, intensity, and interest in its play. And so far the cricket has been excellent, both the batting and the bowling. More than the marketing glitz, it is this that augurs well for the future of the tournament.

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