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Peter Roebuck, in his Sydney Morning Herald report of the ODI between Australia and England at the SCG, found the chase of 333 runs thrilling but the plot of the match somewhat predictable. I would agree with Roebuck (undoubtedly our finest writer on cricket) on the chase aspect, but disagree sharply on the issue of predictability.
With 50 balls or so all left to bowl, Australia had 70 runs to score. At that stage it would have been a brave person who would have predicted a successful chase, with five balls to spare, of the highest total confronting an Australian side in Australia.
For me, watching the match in my sweltering front room, it seemed unlikely that Australia had the hitters left, with Shane Watson and Mitchell Johnson dismissed, to knock over the run target. Then Michael Clarke flat-batted a six and the – successful – onslaught was launched.
There was nothing predictable about this.
What made the chase even more enthralling was the brilliant television coverage of Channel 9.
I can do without the Boys Own comments of James Bayshaw and (alas) Michael Slater. But the rest of the crew – Richie Benaud with his penetrating insights, Tony Greig with his good-humour, Mark Taylor who is becoming a Benaud (if somewhat more verbose) and especially Ian Healy, with his willingness to speak out when things are happening on the field that shouldn’t be happening.
Healy is the find of the 2010-2011 season.
He has matured into a brilliant boradcaster. He knows a lot about the technicalities and techniques of the game. He is prepared to spell out what is being done right, and what is being done right, even if this means disagreeing with some of his fellow commentators.
You learn something about the game of cricket and the current match whenever Healy takes his place in the commentary box.
Where Channel 7 tends to muck up the presentation of most of the big sports events it covers (the Australian Open and the Rugby World Cup in the past), Channel 9 tends to present a world-class broadcast of whatever event they are covering.
Stand up and take a bow Steve Crawley, the director of sports on the network.
It is the big things like picking the right commentators (their rugby league commentators are outstanding) that make the Channel 9 presentations so enjoyable.
There are also the little things, like the silence that descends on the commentary box as a ball is bowled. You are given the chance to watch and work out for yourself what has happened before the commentators come in and add to your knowledge of the event.
Channel 9 are hosting the 2011 Rugby World Cup. It is will fascinating to see what they bring to the coverage of a game that should be better presented than it currently is.
Getting back to the ODIs, Roebuck makes the valid point that there is too much predictability about the middle parts of a ODI. Batsmen are prepared to accumulate runs, holding or trying to hold wickets in hand before launching their hopefully decisive assault in the batting power play.
He is also, correctly in my opinion, critical of the way that captains tend to push their fields back, allowing the pushing and prodding ‘attack,’ as soon as the 15 overs are completed.
He wants captains to be more adventurous or skilful and set tighter fields thereby forcing the batsmen to take risks in trying to nudge their singles and twos.
Roebuck was a fine captain and his thoughts need to be considered.
He also offers the idea of making the entire 50 overs a batting power-play event, with bowling sides forced to have five or six players inside the ring at all times.
His point is that cricket “cannot give up the ghost as far as ODIs are concerned.” He does not want a future of only Big Bash (Twenty20 cricket) and Long Haul (Test cricket).
This is absolutely right.
Crowds are falling away from Twenty20 in droves, from an average of 18,152 (2009-10) to 13,475 (2010-2011). More importantly, the gate at Twenty20 matches in Sydney, say, three times less than those at ODI.
It is calculated that the Twenty20 at the Homebush venue have, at best, a gate of around $70, 000, which means the events are being run at a loss.
Aside from the financial considerations, ODI are a much more interesting and satisfying cricket experience than Twenty20 cricket. The Big Bash game is just that, a game resembling baseball more than cricket.
They should not be a staple of the cricket game in Australia. They have their place as one-offs, or in a limited number of games.
But this presumes that the ODIs are made more interesting for spectators, or as interesting for spectators are Channel 9 makes these games for its viewers.
Roebuck’s idea of an entire innings of power play is an excellent starting point, something the officials should think about seriously and then adopt as soon as possible.
Talking about the officials, perhaps they are a part of the problem of ODIs. They tend to think of mechanistic changes like (in my view) the ridiculous notion of dividing each sides innings into two.
Forty years on, the product, especially on television, is still good.
But it is time for adjustments to be made to the ODIs to take the game into its next 40 years.
Here’s a suggestion.
Why not use the expertise of Channel 9 and its commentary team to come up with ideas? After all, it was Channel 9 with World Series Cricket that revolutionised the way cricket was televised. And Richie Benaud came up with the idea of the circle and other interesting innovations.