What happened to cricket and I? We were truly in love I thought, and then … Why? Theories abound. Maybe the problem was me. I generally respect elders, but players were becoming my age and younger.
To my discredit, I have little respect for the younger. You know you are getting old when a cop pulls you out and you think, “How old are you?” – then tell them to go back to their car and stop being silly.
Similarly, I’d look at Punter Ponting and think: “A few years ago, me in Year 12 you in Year 7, I’d have knocked your block off with an unjust bouncer, and now you wear your baggy green, chewing gum.”
I grew with cricket in the 1980s. As a one-eyed little Aussie, it was good but frustrating as all hell because the West Indies were so damn good that Australia rarely won. Joel Garner, Michael Holding, Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, all of them, dictated a wave of terror. They did so with an overbearing sheer brutality, speed, raw natural talent, grace and sportsmanship. Oh, and an overwhelming cool.
Every year there was some great new talent, like Malcolm Marshall. He was bowling in a one dayer, and despite the nullifying effect TV has on speed, he looked terrifyingly quick, dangerous, and quite simply life threatening.
Border, opening, looked scared to me, and after 12 or so overs of next to no scoring, all effort spent on protecting ribs and life itself, I gave up all hope of Australia making any runs at all. How could you against that?
I dropped my bundle, disillusioned, frustrated as all hell, angry, and went outside to bowl the tennis ball against the wall at the old wooden box. Watching that was like watching torture, I could take no more.
But I grew wiser and came to love the Windies. Their quality was undeniable, even to my child mind, and I had to admire it, and then support it. I wasn’t the only one. Quite oddly, there was a large group of Aussies that openly supported them at games.
Then in the mid-90s, decay set in.
The Windies were defeated at home by the Aussies in ’94, was it? It was terminal. The Australians led by Tubby Taylor, coached by Bob Simpson, embarked on a new era of absolute professionalism, Michael Bevan discovered you could tap singles about to win one-day matches, and as Aussies cheered, my depression worsened.
On one occasion I was medicated by the Australian Kim Hughes stating: “You can talk all you like about Waugh’s ‘invincibles’, but against the 80’s Windies they wouldn’t have stood a chance.” Otherwise my emptiness lingered.
Circa 2001, I silently went to see the last day of Courtney Walsh bowling in Australia – the last remnant of the great era. It was a sad day for me and cricket. I knew she was leaving me.
I hope I’m wrong and that we can get back together, one day. I still think cricket is a masterful concept. I liken Test cricket to chess, not something you watch every move, but good to follow and catch the odd spell. It’s also too complicated for Americans to understand. I like that.
Another theory for my melancholic state is that people always look back on periods as ‘the good old days’. I think it’s because our brains are hard wired to block out bad memories, thus when remembering we do so fondly. It stops us all doing ourselves in prematurely with our current gloom.
So if you’re enjoying a sport at the moment, relish it, for the euphoria may not last forever.
R.I.P Malcolm Marshall, and thanks for that. Died aged only 41, how sad. The greatest bowler of all time, by far.
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