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The parallels of the plight of the current Australian cricket team and the fall of the great West Indian cricket side are so alarming it shatters the hope that we will ever return to the top with any gusto ever again, unless of course the rest of the world falls with us.
There is no point blaming selectors or coaches or high performance units, the Australian cricket team did pretty well 10 years ago with a mediocre coach, an equally questionable selection panel and a smaller high performance unit team.
The problem is much deeper and systemic. Look no further than the massive deterioration of the grass roots.
A decade ago you could watch second grade matches in Brisbane that had glimpses of first class talent. On Monday night I was excited because I was able to find the time to watch the Tasmanian second innings in the Shield final, looking in hope to find the talent in the next generation of Australian batsmen.
Boy was that a disappointment, there was barely first class talent on display in a Sheffield Shield final and the batting techniques and temperaments barely would have cut it in second grade Brisbane matches a decade ago.
That’s when it hit me that we are well on the way to repeating what the West Indies have done, something that I thought was impossible because our system with high quality academies was failure proof.
The major parallel between the West Indian team in the 1990’s and the Australian team now is that Michael Clarke. Basically the only world class batsmen of his generation is carrying the team very much like Brian Lara did.
The supporting casts are also similar, the dependable lefties, Lara having Chanderpaul while Clarke has Phil Hughes until Shaun Marsh to gets back to form and the power hitting openers in Chris Gayle and David Warner to name a few.
And we all know why there were basically no other world class batsmen to support Lara?
Basically, cricket became less compelling to the best young athletes of the Caribbean. The tall ones tuned to basketball, inspired by West Indian NBA great Patrick Ewing. Now the tallest player in the squad is a batsman.
The fast ones turned to athletics, and others turned to football as the world game expanded strongly through the 90s.
It’s plain to see Australia’s best athletes have cricket fourth or fifth in the pecking order behind the four football codes. Primarily because over a thousand footballers can get paid the salary of the top 25 Australian cricketers.
This wasn’t the case in the 1980s when cricket offered an equal better career choice for our golden generation.
Now this is not the case. Michael Clarke, who apparently was a promising footballer, is an exception to the rule.
The other grass roots problem is the competition format for cricket which has not evolved with the faster paced modern society.
Hundreds if not thousands of talented cricketers have abandoned the sport over the past decade because cricket is still primarily played in the same format as was the case in the 1890s, that is on Saturdays for six hours in the blazing sun in a boring two-day format.
It’s absurd that this is the case.
The key is that ex-cricketers haven’t stopped loving the sport, it’s just that the summer Saturday tradition now doesn’t fit as well with modern society.
I’m certain a whole generation of cricketers would come back to the sport if mid-week twilight / night T20 competitions were formed across the country.
So my solution to stopping the Calypso-like decline in Australia? Cricket Australia should look no further than investing in floodlights at cricket grounds across the country and lobby hard for daylight savings in Queensland.
These competitions can then build pathways to an expanded professional national T20 league which can be as attractive as a footballing career for our nation’s best athletes.
To be honest I think it is the only solution to stopping the decline properly. Which means it’s up to the Cricket Australia board, not the current coach or high performance unit.
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