As 2014 fades away, I become melancholy at the passing of time. Less of it remains in the useful, youthful end of the hourglass.
Relatives age and fade as their time draws nearer its end.
We reflect on the fact that every year more of our heroes are no longer here.
It’s precious stuff, time. Tony Grieg and Phil Hughes left us far too soon. On a less profound level, it caught up with MS Dhoni yesterday. As cricket’s three formats make greater demands, everyone has a shelf life.
Cricket at the highest level has evolved rapidly in terms of its use of time. Fantastically efficient now, a Big Bash game is scheduled to start, entertain and end in three hours.
Shorter than a Springsteen gig. Done and dusted in less time than it takes to cook a proper stew.
There’s still Test cricket of course. Five days is still a long time but normally enough to get a result, especially now that batsmen think nothing of scoring at four an over.
Five days was not long enough at Melbourne this week though. A good wicket, some quality backs-to-the-wall batting from India’s new captain and his sidekick and fifth morning showers meant that India were able to cling on for the draw they probably deserved.
If India had managed to chase that miraculous 384 to shush Mitchell Johnson and Co, it would of course have eclipsed England’s 322 a lifetime ago.
Very different back then. Timeless Tests in those days. If only it had realised how short the period between World War 1 and Hitler’s second innings would be, maybe cricket wouldn’t have been so casual about such a precious resource but its attitude to time in the 1920s was that of a millionaire in a sweetshop.
To be honest, things probably went a bit too far a decade later when they had to call off the Durban Test after a week and a half – because the Poms needed to catch their last boat home, but Melbourne 1928/29 seems to have been a cracker.
Rain on the fifth day of that match didn’t make a result impossible. Instead, it started to make things interesting…
Truthfully, the first four days of the Test might not have been scintillating.
Two strong batting sides had cancelled each other out on first innings, with the incomparable Wally Hammond’s 200 nudging the tourists towards a 20-run lead after hundreds for the hosts from Kippax and Ryder.
This was Don Bradman’s first series, and having been recalled to the side for this, the third Test, he followed up a first innings 79 with his maiden hundred (112) in the second dig.
By today’s speedier standards the 281 balls the Don took to reach that century appear painstaking: pedestrian even. It was consistent with the pace of the game. Nobody appears to have been in any hurry.
In all four innings of the Test, the teams got their runs at only just above two per over. The first innings of 397 and 417 had been compiled in 180 and 195 overs respectively.
One wonders how some of the fine bowlers on show might have coped in today’s 20-20 carnage. To give some idea, England’s Somerset spinner ‘Farmer’ Jack White delivered 113.5 overs in the match of which a mind-boggling 50 were maidens!
He finished with match figures of 6-171 and if anyone had then heard of economy rates his would have been lower than a depressed rattlesnake.
Following Bradman’s innings, Australia must have felt they had built a match-winning position.
By the end of the fifth day, they were 347-8 and although England knew they would have no time pressure in their reply 300 is a lot to get in the last innings of any match.
Overnight, things took a turn for the worse. An overnight storm dumped a few million gallons of rain on the uncovered, five day old wicket and conditions on day 6 were treacherous, with the summer sun baking the deck into an old fashioned ‘sticky dog’.
Unsurprisingly, when play started on the sixth day the Aussie tail didn’t hang around and by all accounts England were thought to have about the same chance of winning as the Headingley bookies were to give them in 1981.
They did have a couple of decent openers though: the legendary pairing of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe.
Sutcliffe, although overshadowed slightly by the genius of Hammond in this series, finished his Test career with an average of 60 and now played the innings of his life.
A 2009 BBC radio documentary featured an interview given before his death in 1978 in which he described the wicket as “a terrible, vicious murderous thing.”
There was little chance of scoring runs. Good judges were predicting that England would be bowled out in single figures and Sutcliife recounted that: “All we could do was keep our bats out of the way and allow the rising ball to hit us on the body.”
With skill and luck, however, the openers batted for most of that terrible afternoon and evening.
Time was their friend, and age did not appear to weary them: Hobbs, let it be said, was at this point opening the batting in an Ashes Test at the grand old age of 46!
When he got out, Sutcliffe was joined at the crease by the tough-as-old-boots Douglas Jardine, and against all odds England survived until the close with only one wicket down.
The following day, Sutcliffe went on to complete one of the bravest, most skilful hundreds we may ever see and with contributions from Hammond and Hendren England went on to record a hard-fought three wicket victory to retain the Ashes.
So although we know it can’t happen again, sometimes it’s best to roll with it, forget about the passing of time and let things take their natural course. Now, what have I done with that stew pot?
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