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The newly carnivalised Ryobi Cup – admittedly without fairy floss, yet possessing more than its fair share of clowns – concludes this week, with Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria left to duke it out for the top prize.
It’s been a short month, but what better time is there than towards the end of the tournament to discuss the general disillusionment surrounding it and Australian cricket in general.
To start with, the first announcement of the revamped edition of the Ryobi Cup was itself a warning sign.
Players were given only a few weeks notice to prepare for their respective campaigns, having to shift from training for several months for their upcoming red and white ball games to simply white ball cricket.
Which is just as well for Cricket Australia, because if they had had the time to discuss the schedule, they would have undoubtedly failed to comply with it.
Prominent domestic cricket figures George Bailey and Cameron White, while both admitting to not have solutions themselves, criticised the schedule.
What could they possibly have had to criticise?
Perhaps they disagreed with the ridiculous use of Sydney suburban grounds as the only sites for matches.
Perhaps they disagreed with the inability to unearth in-form state district players later in the season.
Perhaps they disagreed with the pressure that the rushed Shield games to follow will put upon bowlers.
It’s really an all-you-can-bother-to-eat situation.
Furthermore, it says a lot about the current administration when the players union’s request of a reduction to the money-pumping smack-a-thon that is the Big Bash League is not only denied but completely ignored.
The Bash is instead extended, with a completely different competition then reduced to accommodate it.
The resulting six-game instead of ten-game schedule for the Ryobi Cup most certainly affected the incomes of those players pigeonholed as one day specialists.
Now many will spend further time focusing on their Big Bash efforts, just to secure some cash.
If that doesn’t ring an alarm bell in an Australian fan’s ear, it should.
Already the Australian Test cricket team has seen the impact that a lack of decent batting temperament can have upon an innings on more than one occasion.
Yet what perhaps is the biggest tragedy of the almost completely discarded Ryobi Cup is that people seem to have forgotten just how good for cricket limited overs matches can be.
Currently Australia has a surplus of talented batsmen who have tasted the highs of Tests, only to fall back shortly afterwards to the glamourless life of domestic cricket.
Often the reaction is to change one’s game, where in the cases of Phillip Hughes and Usman Khawaja, both have fallen into the “bat for time” mode.
They haven’t had an attacking mindset, but have been rather tentatively prodding from the crease, fearing their next dismissal and the subsequential calls for their removal from the team.
Admittedly, batting for time is not necessarily a bad thing.
Yet when a player is selected for their ability to command from their crease with ease, as Khawaja and Hughes both were, it can be conversely seen as a step backwards.
One day cricket is able to take batsmen out from these shells and remind them to be aggressive without simply “hacking” at anything within the reach of their arms.
Batsmen are still required to build their innings, but teaches the importance of putting the bad balls away and keeping the good balls out.
And in a continuing shame, many of our current crop of batsmen seem to have lost sight of this.
This is something that will only continue to happen, as long as it is allowed to go on.
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