I deal in fact, not opinion, and it is now a confirmed fact that cricket is most interesting when the Australian team performs poorly.
The recent dramatic loss to South Africa has everyone talking and once again paying interest to the game.
The Australian team were bowled out for their second lowest Test total ever, suffered a humiliating defeat, and suddenly ears prick to the story in the news.
Otherwise, its just another game of cricket. Test cricket at that, which most people, except the deluded like myself, find extremely dull.
Test cricket was most interesting in the 70s and 80s. All teams had some pretty good players in them, some real iconic players and characters too.
They also had some bad players in the mix which made them vulnerable. The players weren’t all professional so anything could happen.
Australia were like that too. The brilliance of Lillee was mixed with cod ordinariness of Bruce Yardley or Trevor Chappell. It was a good team but could easily struggle.
England was always likely to beat them, as was any side really. And of course, the Windies was like viewing great art. It all made for the exciting frustration of losing and was thus interesting.
Then came that era where Australia were going around easily beating everyone. It almost killed the game.
It was that era where the game’s rule-makers started coming up with attempts at making the sport more interesting to get people watching, like Twenty20, or whatever it’s called.
Is this a coincidence? No it isn’t.
It’s because Test cricket was becoming so methodical, so predictable due to a dominating, yet dull Australian side, that you knew what was going to happen, so I began trimming the edges of my lawn and polishing the new car rather than following the cricket.
There were other reasons of course. Such as the loss of talent in other countries’ teams. In that era, usually good teams turned bad and couldn’t compete.
The English were unbelievably bad; the West Indies totally lost the plot; Pakistan too; India and South Africa were only just okay.
Australia were the only team with good players in it, ruled by this new professionalism that bleached any interest – no collapses, no glimmers of brilliance followed by poor – nothing but dull professional technique.
Glen McGrath was lauded as a great even, the dullest bowler to roll the arm over – couldn’t swing it, not particularly fast, constant line and length.
Australia seems now a troubled side.
Most Aussie supporters are angry about it. They are beside themselves with all sorts of theories as to why this is so.
But the team has talent in it; there are some very good bowlers and batters still. They can still produce some good innings, bowl a team out for little.
But the great thing about it is they can also collapse in the batting, and the bowlers can produce some very ordinary spells.
This all means that anything can happen.
This South African Test is a perfect example of it. Clarke gets 151, yet still the team collapses and falls over.
Australia will never be a totally hopeless side, eever. But they can now be beaten, and beaten with some astonishingly poor performances, which is worth tuning in just for the chance to see it.
And this is good for the sport. You probably hate it because you love the Aussie side so much, but if you look without bias, it’s just interesting.
So there’s no need for analysis and getting all worked up over whether Pup Clarke is too metro-sexual to be a decent captain.
Just rejoice in the fact that the Aussie team is how it should be and Test cricket now has some new life pumped into it.
There is now that lovely thing in sport called competition, so enjoy.
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