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If you play a sport, whatever the level, chances are your primary focus is what’s directly in front of you.
Who you’re playing against next week, will you score any runs/goals/tries, where you are in the league…
I doubt whether your main concern will be the long-term health of your sport of choice – and this is hardly a crime. Those issues are left to those who choose administration over, or in addition to, playing, and is the way it has always been.
To quote, of all people, commander Mike Metcalf from the 1986 movie Top Gun, “Now, we don’t make policy here, gentlemen. Elected officials, civilians, do that. We are the instruments of that policy.”
A bit of an odd direction to take (I couldn’t find anything better) but one that came to mind when reading Adam Voges’ criticism of the pink ball due to be used in the inaugural day/night Test match at the end of November.
If you haven’t seen, after the match between the Prime Minister’s XI and the touring New Zealanders at Canberra’s Manuka Oval, Voges, who made a half-century, commented, “There wasn’t much pink left on it at the end of the game. To be honest it didn’t hold up very well at all tonight.
“It looked as though the lacquer had come off and it was turning green basically.
“There were bits of pink left, but it was probably more green than pink at the end.”
All understandable stuff, after all, he was one of those batting against the aforementioned ball, and is likely to be one of those charged with doing the same thing in the slightly more rarefied atmosphere of a Test match at the Adelaide Oval.
It was a straightforward answer to a question of the same ilk, but no amount of negative feedback is going to alter the fact that this game is happening and – bar a major disaster – it won’t be the last.
This is where Tom Skerritt’s character’s address to his school’s new recruits comes in. The elected officials have decided that day/night Tests are worth trying, and the instruments of that policy now have to prove it isn’t – pun very much intended – a stab in the dark.
The Australian and New Zealand players may have reservations, and very few sportsmen like change, but there is a wider picture here and the decision makers, who bear the brunt of criticism all too readily, deserve some praise for taking a decisive step.
Any debate surrounding Test cricket as a format inevitably leads to a train of thought indicating a slow death, with the 20-over game increasingly taking precedence.
And while this may not be 100 per cent accurate, one look at the proliferation of short-form tournaments in complete contrast to the sparsely attended Tests at many grounds around the world hardly lends weight to any disagreement.
In years gone by, the attendances at Tests across the globe were probably not too dissimilar to today, but then there was nothing quite so extreme for it to be judged against. The limited-overs game had its moments but never to the same extent, and there has been plenty of talk of that suffering ever since its brash cousin entered the fray just over a decade ago.
To that end, you would think, something needs to be done. If it really is a drastic decline then drastic measures should constitute the remedial action. What is about to take place certainly fits into that particular bracket.
The ball may not be fit for purpose, the contest may have elements that ruin the integrity of the two-innings format, and the ratings may not hit the desired heights. But if you don’t know, then you don’t know.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the game needs a significant shot in the arm and if bemoaning the state of the game is your bag then you can have no complaints.
It’s a bit like having your first beer as a teenager and not knowing whether or not it will meet your approval; you try it anyway, find you enjoy it and keep partaking, or you move on to something different.