There are very few games where, when unlikely to win, one can merely decide to not lose. Even online Scrabble offers a forfeit when someone goes a week without a move.
Yet in cricket, there’s that legitimate third option beside the win and the loss.
It’s often cited as a reason that foreign audiences can’t grasp the game – cricket fans routinely crack the self-deprecating joke about five days played for no result.
But the draw is a result of great variety. Depending on the context, it can effectively act as a win, a loss, or the final arbiter of a shared victory. 1-0 up in the last Test of a series, and a draw’s as good as a win. 2-1 down with one to play and you can’t win back a trophy.
However lopsided the match position when the draw is called, each team gets the same result. One’s miracle escape is the other side’s one that got away.
But the draw can also lead to days like the one to come in the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval. Presuming the rain stays away, we’ll essentially have a day of exhibition cricket.
With four of five days gone, we’re not even halfway through the second of four innings. So we’ll see some batting, some bowling, and generally a pressure-free afternoon seeing who can take the chance to polish up their record.
It was clear after just two days of this Test that England had no intention of winning. Facing a big Australian total of 492, that would have required making 600, ripping through the Aussies, and facing a fifth-day chase.
Far easier just to bat out a day, wait for the next day’s rain, then return to the arena with the contest already dead and their series clean sheet intact.
I have to admit that, in one deeply hidden way, I kind of like the idea.
Not as a spectator, mind you. The third day’s play was boring to the point of pain, driving us to beat our heads into our desks just to find something to think about.
Retiring to the bar was the only medication, and James Faulkner was not far wrong in suggesting the crowd should get their money back.
But for a player, I can’t help thinking what an incredible luxury it would be, being told you’ve got a full day, maybe two, to just go out there and bat. No need to score, no need to even consider a match situation. Just bat.
It’s not that the object is to avoid scoring. Scoring is great. What you miss is the chance to do it at your own pace. Lower levels of cricket don’t have this latitude. People don’t have time. The longest match you’ll find might be two days over two weekends.
This means that every match you play is by definition a limited-overs game. Most are lucky to be 50 overs, often it’s more like 20. It necessitates a completely different approach to batting.
Sure, you can let some balls go as you find your range, especially if you’re an important player for your side. But the crap batsmen like myself can’t be afforded much.
A handful of dots, ok, but face out a maiden and that might be five percent of your team’s overs.
As even a few dot balls go by you feel the pressure. You’re wasting your side’s chances. You have to play some shots, at least find a way off strike.
And so you attack, score a few where you can, and even getting out is part of contributing to the team – make a few and make way for the next bloke.
Never is there any call for a barnacle, or the need to show Test match application (notwithstanding the gulf in skill). Playing like that would be selfish, and cricket is a team sport.
Most batsmen love the feeling of smashing runs, the solidity of well-struck shots. But some of us can’t play the big shots. Some can’t play the small ones either.
Some of us are frankly rubbish, and ours is the thrill of even the most modest achievement in a pursuit to which we are intrinsically unsuited.
To those as bad as me, an innings of eight runs can be an odyssey. We’d scorn it as nothing from a Test player, but I’ll be able to enumerate the eight separate scoring shots, the eight times one by one when I succeeded in my battle with the bowler.
Each ball that doesn’t get me out is a moderate triumph.
So imagine: a mandate to survive, no requirement to score when it doesn’t suit you. Imagine seven hours of batting spread out before you, an ocean to be explored. You against a bowling attack, a struggle of endurance. What new and unusual liberty. The prospect thrills.
In this comes something I’d never have expected: a kinship on one point with Geoffrey Boycott. On Test Match Special, the man who is the byword for slowness offers a limited if genial rotation of rambling complaints and obvious statements. (“If it’s ‘itting leg stoomp, the bails coom off!”)
As England batted on Day 3, though, he spoke about his playing days, and those mornings when he would wake up to see sunshine.
“Batting day!” he would say to himself. “It’s a batting day today.”
On radio all these decades later, you could suddenly hear the naked greed in his voice, a man more than happy for a parade of bowlers to work all day for his own fulfilment of being undismissed.
Boycott is the only man in the world who is medically incapable of being bored to death by virtue of his own naturally occurring antibodies.
Presumably this was why he seemed to be on the radio that entire painful afternoon, filling shift after shift as his colleagues expired around him.
To Boycott, it was a day’s Test cricket exactly as he would have wished to play it. If I were ever given a challenge like England’s, I would relish the chance to take it up.
The only difference is, I wouldn’t expect 30,000 people to come and watch me.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Well, there was a time when I thought he was almost entertaining because of his 'personalty'. Not anymore.
Hookin' YT
Guest
England run rate, all innings, the whole series 3.00RPO. Australian run rate, all innings 3.40RPO. Ashes series 3 zip England won in India 2-1; Australia hammered in India 4-0 I was most entertained by the last encounter on field England smashing us around the park to be 5/206 @ 5.15RPO whilst we were under the pump 6/111 @4.83RPO. Very entertaining batting by the boys in England Clarkey. The bogans love it. It what defines them. Get flogged, having a slog. Not me. I don't find this entertaining Clarkey, win some tests. Cut the corporate spin.
swerve
Guest
"you're rubbish mate" So exactly where did I say that? Could you base your critiscisms on fact. I don't have to explain as it is plain to see that I simply consider his opinion rubbish. Simple really.
Bayman
Guest
..and yet, the weird thing is, I like him. He's everything people say he is but, still, I like him. Even when he has given me a hard time I find myself not getting annoyed with him. He is a caricature but to spend some time with him is a lesson in cricket. I had the great fortune to spend twenty minutes alone with him during the last Ashes series in Australia. Just us in a small room. He signed everything even while telling me he shouldn't. His comments on the game, and the players, are forthright and insightful. And he doesn't hold back. He's genuinely funny, in that dour Yorkshire way, and he absolutely knows his place in the game. A lack of confidence does not seem to be an issue for Geoffrey. I've met him since and he still is as grumpy as the first time. I reckon I could meet him twenty times and he still would give no sign of recognition. He's grumpy, opinionated, big-headed and a Yorkshireman to his bootstraps. He's just Geoffrey. Like I said, despite everything I like him and nobody knows the game better than him. Another thing, unlike today's heroes, if Boycott signs for you he takes his time and gives you the best autograph anybody possibly could give. He might be grumpy doing it but he will give you a great signature. Every time.
Bayman
Guest
Chris, I admire your loyalty to the captain and the cause but let's not get too carried away. Clarke declared because it was the only chance he had to win, not to give the crowd an entertaining day. Cook was never trying to win until Clarke presented the opportunity but even Cook was able to see it for what it was - a chance to stretch 3-0 to 4-0. He was handed the chance on a plate but at least he accepted it, knowing, of course, that he was unlikely to lose. A wicket every four and a bit overs was always a big ask for the Australian team but they gave it a shot. I am a little surprised some English fans are criticising Clarke for not wanting to actually lose it in the end. If he had not reminded the umpires to check their light meters I'm sure Aussie fans would have been asking questions. Of course, why the umpires were not checking their meters anyway, given their application of same previously in this series, is another question. Cook would have done as Clarke did and had no problem with it. Neither did Trott have an issue. It may have been different if Australia had been 1-0 up and an England victory at the Oval given them a drawn series and, thus, an Ashes retention. But it was not the case. Clarke set the game up and surely could not be criticised for closing it down. But it had very little to do with entertainment as a motive. Retrieving something from the rubble, certainly, but it was a calculated move for the team's sake, not the crowd's. If England did not deserve the series win the score would not have been 3-0. Having said that, four first innings leads in five games to Australia. Most teams should win a couple from there. That we did not is significant. That England gave up four such leads is also significant. Prior to England's final batting opportunity four of the top five rungetters in this series were Australian - and still we did not win even one game. All that and our batting was rubbish. The bottom line, however, is that those England supporters who think that all England has to do is turn up in Australia in a couple of months for another 3-0 romp are kidding themselves. They did what they had to do in England and managed to finish the victors. Good luck to them and well played when it mattered. They might still win again in Australia but they know now they'll have to play well. But whoever wins, the crowd will be the least of their worries - and their considerations.
matt h
Guest
Hookin' I generally don't agree with the way you word your comments, but here at least you are right. Have a look at the great West Indian side of the 80's. They actually drew a lot. The great English side of the 60's did as well. It was only the great Australian side of the 90's/2000's that tried to reduce draw rates. And they did not do it by sporting declarations, they did it by scoring very fast. Thing is, they are the only team in history that has had the cattle to do it.
matt h
Guest
Swerve when you disagree with a comment you are supposed to actually explain what you disagree with and why, not just say "you're rubbish mate". It's not primary school - you are sopposed to be able to support your arguments here. Like this: - Chris, England were booing Clarke because he tried to pressure the umpires into coming off for bad light as England looked like chasing down the target, not because he made a sporting declaration. See that wasn't so hard was it.
swerve
Guest
Mate you're kidding, right? People can't actually believe the rubbish you just wrote. I thought I had read someone one eyed, misguided comments but yours is just over the top.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Declaring the first innings total at just under 500 on a pitch most people consider to be a bit of a road is actually a very bold, aggressive declaration. Are you suggesting he should have declared for 350 or something? Australia has, for years and years, realised that as a professional sport, their role goes beyond just trying to win (or not lose) but actually goes is one of entertainment. People are paying a lot of money to come to a test match. Playing the way England did on day 3 is treating the spectators with contempt. Clarke knew, coming into Day 5, that the chances of Australia winning this test were incredibly slim, yet he did his best to make some sort of a game out of it. England never would have done that. No credit to them for doing well in the chase, Clarke basically handed them an opportunity to win the game in order to produce a good days cricket and give himself the outside chance of winning. He knew that declaration gave England more chance of winning than Australia, but he did it nonetheless. Of course he didn't want to lose, but Australia is all about playing attacking, entertaining cricket, trying to make it a good spectacle, give the crowd something to cheer about. And what did he get for his efforts, the pathetic English crowd booed the one person who contrived to give them an entertaining days cricket.
Glenn Innes
Guest
I wish we had him opening for Australia at the moment, for an opening bat to average 47 over 106 tests speaks for itself,.
pope paul v11
Guest
I remember Boycs scoring 77 in about 7 hours in 1978/79. Still no less a dasher than K J Hughes scored the slowest ( Ashes or all time not too sure? ) Australian century in the same series.
Glenn Innes
Guest
I remember Boycott scoring seventy odd before lunch against Australia during the 70/71 tour, he wasn't always dour .He played every ball on it's merits, if you served him up crap he would deal with it.
swerve
Guest
Yeah he's a real downer Floyd.
Hookin' YT
Guest
Yeah Right.
Bigbaz
Guest
+1
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Boycott is the same sad, repulsive individual as he ever was. Depressing to even hear his name mentioned. Utterly dreadful man.
Neil
Guest
+1
polly
Guest
So stayed in & made a hundred though, wouldn't mind a few of those for the Aussie batsmen hey ?!
Mick
Guest
I think your point is that Geoffrey Boycott is a better batsman than a writer who doesn't claim to be a good batsman, which is a stupid point. That is my point.
swerve
Guest
+1