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The humble ODI has received a battering the past few years, with the emergence of the hotpanted gyrating twenty-over form of the game relegating it to the status of dowdy older sister beside Test cricket’s venerable maiden aunt.
But as the first ODI of the Australian international summer was played at the MCG last night, you could only think one thing: thank God the cricket is back. Nothing marks the return of warm days like the crush of humanity at the MCG, the burble of ABC radio, and the permeating creaking sound as Richie Benaud’s joints are oiled up for another year.
Australian fans, saturated with both sport and rain in recent days, largely stayed away. The modest crowd of 20 000 seemed almost entirely made up of Sri Lankan supporters.
Yet despite only filling a small part of this coliseum, they made more noise than all of Flemington the day before.
The match at times wandered, at times meandered in a way that Twenty20 is specifically engineered to avoid, but eventually provided us with the payoff that only longer forms of the game can do.
Lasith Malinga, bleached curls flying everywhere like a perennial muck-up day student, confirmed his status as the new crowd favourite, ready to step into Muttiah Muralitharan’s position. He pinned the Australians down with fast, furious, slingshot bowling to register 1/9 off his first five overs, and 1/39 by the end of the day.
Thisara Perera took advantage of the pressure up the other end, snaring five wickets to leave the Aussies tottering like the final stages of a Jenga championship. It was left to Mike Hussey to compile a slow but important 71 off 91 balls and guide the imploding innings to 239.
But anything you can do, we can do better, said the Lankans, as they engineered their own collapse to 8/107. At this point, the game looked lost for all money. At this point, it really started to get interesting. At this point, Malinga came to the crease, with his ODI average of eight, to join last recognised batsman Angelo Mathews.
Whether it was tactics or desperation, they elected that moment to take the batting Powerplay and open up the outfield. Malinga clubbed a few boundaries. Mathews kept pace.
The board kept ticking over.
The shot of the day came, with the score on 184. For 11 overs, everybody had been waiting for Malinga to get into a tail-end tangle. Instead, he stepped away to John Hastings and sent a clean batsmanlike straight drive whistling down the ground and into the crowd. No mean feat at the MCG. No hint of agriculture or lower order about it. This, I believe, is what you call a money shot.
There were still 50 runs to get, but suddenly the Lankans looked like the side with belief, and the Australians like this one had already got away.
The woolly Sri Lankan paceman’s confidence was clear when he touched Watson to deep backward square and immediately demanded the second run to get back on strike.
That run also brought up his half-century and a luminous smile. Based on batting averages, quipped Damien Fleming on the ABC, that was like Bradman scoring 700.
Mathews, meanwhile, displayed a cool head worthy of an Arctic explorer, with one of the finest examples of clean hitting and classical strokeplay seen in limited-overs cricket. Not once did he play an improvised or ugly shot, yet the runs flowed at a strike rate of over 90.
His feet moved with confidence, his beautifully-played pull shots sliced open midwicket, and a crisp off-drive to Mitchell Johnson, hardly a trundler, sailed high and handsome over the boundary. He ended the day unbeaten on 77.
Clarke at least showed some tactical nous, bringing in a slip and a ring field as the target dwindled into the teens, challenging the batsmen to risk going over the top. Unfortunately for him both took the invitation, slamming Watson over mid-off and mid-on respectively for fours.
Clarke also had the gumption to bring himself on to bowl when just three runs were required. He seemed the only Australian to have remembered that they only needed two more wickets. And if the game was to be lost, he would lose it himself. It was a captain’s move, prepared to go down with the ship.
It had been the kind of changing script that is impossible to fit into the ad-break version of the game, which has ups or downs, but seldom room for both. And there was still one twist in store. With two runs scored and the scores level, Malinga finally lost his composure and set off for a single that wasn’t there.
He had scored 56 from 48 balls, with six fours and two sixes, up from a previous high score of 16. But it ended as Steven Smith shattered the stumps. And after three hours of sitting huddled under a blanket on the boundary line, a shivering Murali came to the non-striker’s end.
Clarke bowled two more dot-balls to Mathews to finish the over, and the No. 11 took guard. Of course he did. His scripts have been written by Jerry Bruckheimer of late.
One nervy block to a Shane Watson yorker had hearts in mouths stadium-wide. Then Murali jammed down on a leg-side delivery, squirting it to fine leg for four, and his face lit up like a Vegas nightclub.
From the boundary, Malinga’s did the same, twin lighthouses signalling at each other across the bay. The way the crowd went up, it would have been easy to believe you were in Colombo. Once again, the joyousness of sport had been rendered palpable.
Sri Lanka are a team on the rise, no doubt about it, surging to third on both the Test and ODI rankings. Despite losing past greats like Chaminda Vaas and Sanath Jayasuriya, and with Murali to go next, their current player pool contains an embarrassment of riches.
Sangakarra and Jayawardene are among the very best batsmen in the world, and in Sri Lanka’s history. Malinga is a superstar in the final stages of emergence. Suraj Randiv is an interesting character: a tall off-spinner, all angles and elbows, who creeps up to the crease like a pantomime villain about to steal a diamond necklace.
With him, Sri Lanka even had the luxury of leaving out mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis.
And Australia?
“Winning is a habit,” said Victorian batsman Nick Jewell on radio before the game, “but losing is a habit too.” Australia will of course bounce back – they are too proud and too talented not to – but it remains to be seen whether the habit will be of Trainspotting or fingernail-chewing proportions.
“It was a tough day in the office,” said Michael Clarke simply over the PA. The sole bright spot had been Tasmanian debutant Xavier Clarke, who picked up four wickets and a breathtaking run-out in a nerveless display.
But Australia’s were seemingly the only long faces in the house. The cheers rang out, the rich colours of Sri Lanka’s flag curled back and forth through the air, and its players and fans alike literally jumped for joy.
The distinct chill in the spring air was unimportant.
Everyone was caught in the overwhelming sense of uplift that comes with sport’s great unpredictability; riding the warm updraft that only the summer can bring.