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Most people find the concept of multitasking difficult. Imagine, then, how challenging it was for some players to join their teammates for Wednesday night’s Twenty20 against South Africa.
It’s pretty hard to pad up and walk out to bat in Adelaide when you’re busy choosing a movie on the Emirates in-flight entertainment system.
Modern cricket seems to have adopted a more-is-more model, with Cricket Australia and other bodies content to pack the sporting calendar fuller than Gina Rinehart’s wallet. While fan interest is an obvious concern here, I also worry about the quality of cricket on offer if our national side is missing several key players due to scheduling conflicts.
This is not a one-off event, with a number of key players absent from the final game of the 2013-14 international season due to an overlap between that series and another one in New Zealand.
At the time, Channel Nine execs expressed their displeasure at Cricket Australia via the media, with Cricket Australia apparently unaware they were devaluing their main product.
Fortunately, George Bailey, his cousins and a few members of a local under 16s team were able to take the field on that occasion. Crisis averted, you say. Perhaps, but can Australian cricket continue to dilute its product without raising the ire of fans and television networks, who recently paid big bikkies for the broadcasting rights to our national game?
The solution is fairly straightforward, which may not appeal to Cricket Australia. Time management is not my strong suit, but I’m fairly confident the best way to field our strongest team is to avoid double booking players. If there’s a Test match at the WACA starting on Friday, don’t be tempted to try to squeeze in a quick one day series in India from Monday to the following Saturday.
Just say no, or at least be non-committal to the BCCI. You know, something like “I think South Africa are touring that week, but I’ll check with my assistant and call you back”.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step to overcoming it.
Specialist sides in each form of the game is one option here, and we have seen some moves toward this, especially in T20 cricket.
That said, I’m fairly sure most Australian fans would prefer to see David Warner in the whites and coloured pyjamas. He was certainly missed on Wednesday night.
Let’s hope Cricket Australia can see the light, not just the dollar signs, in coming years, and take steps to ensure our cricketers aren’t trying to be in three places at once. With rotation policies and the greater risk of injury that comes with the frequency of games these days, we don’t need any other factors keeping players off the field. The quality of our team, and their likelihood of success, depends on it.
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