Cricket in the 90s was the coolest

A greyed-up ball trickles into the gutter of a fence. It reaches its destination bumping along over a patchy outfield, travelling at a fading pace from a textbook caress by a tinny bat layered with fibreglass tape.

Behind the smoke-sponsored boundary is an undulating crowd that is beside itself. It’s hit a crescendo after collectively urging the camouflaged ball to its home, building turbulence with every closing inch and exploding as it arrives at concrete with the chasing fieldsman a quarter of a second behind.

The camera cuts back to the batsman, who is in calm discussion with his partner in the middle of the pitch, a meeting with minimal eye-contact and not a single glove-punch within. He has a tidy haircut with the moderate remnants of a former mullet, the overhang of an 1980s trend being slowly ushered to the exit.

Their regulation polo shirts are oversized, adorned with brassy lightning bolts and possessing no aerodynamic advances for comfort whatsoever. The sleeves flap in the breeze, giving no value-for-money for the arm panel sponsor, nor any tight showcasing of the pipes, which nobody minded because there was no definition anyway.

Open the scope, and there’s a greater prevalence of Greg Chappell hats. And zinc. On everything. The nose, the lips, flared out across the cheeks in a rough butterfly shape, sometimes in a range of fabulous colours. We could see their names on the players backs, and we all remarked, ‘What an age we live in!’

It was cricket, and it was the 1990s. It was vibrant, it was earthy, it had cache and it possessed the perfect mix of the lazy charm of the 80s and the futuristic fruits of the new frontier of the noughties.

The 90s is an era that forms the foundation of the memory bank for the 30-something cricket tragic. If you don’t look back on these times and take a knee in nostalgic paralysis, then you’re not human.

What a time it was, when being bashed around for 250 was a tough day at the office, and you worried how the boys were going to find the 5.02 per over required to get the win. It was when the pitches were fun for the whole family, and just like those board games recommended for ages 9-90, everyone had a decent crack at it.

Bowlers were assisted with grass that hadn’t been starved, batsmen were rewarded for application and tweakers weren’t afraid to serve up something other than arrows. Medium wobblers weren’t for accelerating the over rate, and offspinners turned it one way only, and nobody cared.

The wicketkeeper batted at seven with a kitschy technique and was still prone to flightiness, the bowlers couldn’t bat and some fieldsmen needed to be secreted in places where their cock-ups could be mitigated.

Sledging was still somewhat witty. Mark Waugh could date a cougar and it wasn’t in the papers six days a week. Umpires were fat, sightscreens didn’t dance between cars and chicken and a run rate of 10 was as rare as rocking horse shit. It was real.

Do you share this love of a magical decade with me? If not, you are probably a tasteless individual who clubs baby seals, or perhaps you just weren’t alive at the time. Either way, odds are that I’m not alone on this one.

So why was this time so memorable and treasured? Put simply, why was it the Miles Davis of its time – the coolest?

Was it because it was an era when Australia slashed through the cricketing universe? A time richly stacked with the characters and icons that we speak so fondly of today? Of steamy summer evenings defending a small total in front of a rambunctious atmosphere packed to the nose-bleeders, when Billy the Kid broke through early to set the joint alight?

Is it because we were able to catch the closing stages of the great West Indian dominance? Those Curtly Ambrose sweatbands and Phil Simmons taking a screamer at gully? Or was it that durable unit of loveable upstarts from New Zealand that saved their Christmas best for sticking it up their vaunted cousins, back in the days when Australia actually played New Zealand?

Was it a super-deadly Pakistan side that was brimming with talismanic artillery, prone to destroying the cream on their day or curiously capitulating to Kenya? The emergence of the Sri Lankan wave of bashing anything that moved inside the first 15 overs of a one-dayer?

Perhaps it was the English and their staunch devotion to the mustard-jar moustaches of the Thatcher era, not to mention the repeated beatings we administered them? The street-fighting South Africans, so tough but always fleeced by rain delays and poor self-confidence? India before they monopolised?

Maybe it was the on-field treats and Waqar’s headband.

Was it the last years of purity before commercialism began to take hold? When games were an event, and not a contractual obligation? When the schedule allowed the superstars to play all the formats – the whole two of them?

Maybe it was just because it was my youthful years, before the cut-and-thrust of daily life got in the way of the memories. Or because it was before I met beer.

Don’t get me wrong, cricket today is still a turbo-charged feast for the senses, with it’s out-of-the-grounders and doosras and speed guns and dancers on unicycles being shot out of a cannon. Despite it sometimes reaching stages where it’s poking out my mind’s eye, I’ll always treasure it to my bosom as if it were one of my own.

But the 90s? Take me back there, because that was where it was at!