By the time you read this, the County Championship trophy will have been decided.
One of Lord’s, Headingley or the County Ground in Taunton – homes of Middlesex, Yorkshire and Somerset respectively – will have cleared a space in their silverware cabinet for this country’s most prestigious domestic accolade.
Time and again, the champions are decided with time to spare. But once in a while the dynamic of a multi-team competition is such that a grandstand finale is provided and this season has provided such an occurrence.
With all the talk of Twenty20 franchise cricket and city destinations dominating the cricketing agenda in recent weeks, it is pleasing to see tradition having its day in the sun; the new kid on the block may have the moves but not necessarily the soul.
But like it or not, fairly soon it will be Manchester against Leeds and Southampton versus Cardiff and another shard of the game’s fabric will be forced to the margins.
The decision to alter the Championship’s divisional structure offers further hacking. A top flight of eight sides (14 games, play each other twice – nice and sensible) and a second tier of ten teams (14 games, play each other once and then add an unfathomable mix of fixtures – daft) has emerged as the quest for the almighty dollar continues apace.
Yet while the sport is changing rapidly, there is still space for those who practice a more old school methodology.
As long as four-day and Test cricket has a place on the schedule pragmatism will have a role to play, attrition will occasionally be required and flash may have to give way to conservatism.
In a roundabout way, this leads to Chris Rogers.
He may well have got his hands on the Championship gong overnight or it could be that he was forced to watch as his Middlesex or Yorkshire counterpart was the one doing the lifting but regardless of circumstance, his retirement means there is one fewer of the old guard doing the rounds.
A pair of centuries in his trademark efficiently determined, crabby style was a nigh on perfect way to exit the stage and if it the professional sportsman’s wish to depart before ability does the same then his has been granted.
Undemonstrative and unassuming, Rogers forged an excellent career and proved, if nothing else, that good things can come to those who display patience.
After his unspectacular Test debut against India at the WACA in 2008, I bet he didn’t expect to be given another opportunity to dine at the top table but a prolific domestic output can be rewarded on occasion and once his foot was back in the door, it appeared that he had been a Test cricketer all along.
It is all too easy to say certain players should have played earlier in their careers but that just isn’t how it works.
Everybody is a benefactor or victim of circumstance with one man’s luck being another’s misfortune and Rogers, if he did fall into the latter category, hardly let it bother him when his chance came.
The perfect counterfoil for the more buccaneering style of David Warner, the left-hander continually proved that there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat and those who do the slaying will, almost without exception, appreciate the efforts of those who lean more towards the staying.
To live totally in the past, certainly in sporting terms, does nobody any favours and those who pine for the good old days are forever destined to be disappointed.
With Rogers’ going another link to days gone by is no more.
The game is no poorer for it, as those of a melodramatic nature will inevitably claim, as there is always somebody else.
Both England and Australia, especially with series in India on the horizon, ignore the old ways at our peril.
In the age of fast forward, Chris Rogers was walking proof of that particular adage.
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