Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good.
If that line from WH Auden’s Stop All the Clocks has not crossed the minds of the Australian cricket team in the last fortnight, I’d be shocked.
Cricket finally moves into Test mode this morning with the first Test between Australia and India set to finally get underway.
The eventual resumption of Test cricket this summer will be tinged with sadness instead of the usual excitement that generally greets red-ball cricket, after the tragic death of Phillip Hughes.
It must be tough going for the mental state of the players who just a fortnight after Hughes’ death, are being asked to swallow up their grief and fear for five days and confront the renewed dangers of cricket.
If possible, I’m sure Michael Clarke and his men would like more time to come to terms with all that has happened in the last fortnight. Yet that time is not available, which leaves me pondering how Australia will play cricket this Summer and beyond.
Will we see the same aggressive in-your-face attitude we’ve come to know, or will Michael Clarke lead a subdued XI through the four Tests and then the World Cup?
It’s a question that has created debate and forced many to have a deep think about the future of a 150-year-old game that, for all its history, now sits in uncharted waters.
Allan Border has called for Australia to remain aggressive but to tone down the sledging while Merv Hughes and Ricky Pointing have called for Mitchell Johnson to make the first ball of the first Test a bouncer.
The above men are well respected and their opinions are meant with the best intentions, but I cannot see their beliefs being played out.
Cricket across the world won’t be the same for a while. It just can’t be.
Human nature dictates that when an accident occurs, the likes of what happened to Phillip Hughes, people take time to process what happened.
Ask anyone who has known or knows someone who has been injured or passed away by a freak accident and they’ll tell you it’s jolting to the system.
It’s on your mind constantly and forces a change in behaviour and routine. You find it tough to escape the thought that if it happened to them, it could happen to you.
Asking the first XI of any side across the world – let alone the Australians – to forget about the Hughes incident and return to normal is foolhardy at this point in time.
Look at day two of third Test between Pakistan and New Zealand where celebrations were muted and not one bouncer was bowled in a whole day, or in the last couple of ODIs between England and Sri Lanka.
The cricket is and will for a while be subdued, because we are still in a time of mourning and reflection. However, I don’t believe it will be permanent.
To continue to play subdued cricket without short pitched bowling would be detrimental on two fronts.
Firstly the contest between bat and ball would be lost as batsmen would gain an even greater advantage in the era of flat pitches and batsman friendly laws.
Secondly – and most importantly – if cricket does not go back to normal, the grief and sadness will stay and it won’t allow cricketers to move on.
It’s unfathomable to ask Shane Watson, David Warner and Michael Clarke to immediately get on with life, but for the sake of their mental health there will come a time where grief will need to make way for acceptance.
The cricket community is hurting badly as they come to terms with losing one of their favourite sons at such a young age.
For a while the game won’t be played in the same way and we as fans have to accept that.
However time is a great healer and with a little of that mixed with patience, cricket will heal its wounds and return to normal.
Winston
Guest
No doubt the players would be affected, but I don't think the audience would expect anything different. Anybody who bothers to buy a ticket or spend a few hours watching tv would expect good games of cricket. As to short ball or not, nothing has changed. They will analyse the opposition and devise plans for each batsman, and if the plan involves using the short ball, they'll use it. And if any bowler decides they are too good for the team by abandoning the team strategy, you drop them and bring a different bowler in. As to what if a player doesn't want to play under the extraordinary circumstance, CA has already declared that that's ok (I assume it means "it's ok for anyone to not play an I won't count that as a black mark against them for future purposes.") But I think that being said, it's only fair that if anyone doesn't play they don't get the match fee. What else could be different?