Last week, I wrote what you will probably agree was an eloquent and moving plea to help keep Test cricket alive and kicking. That was probably enough to save the game on its own, but I admit to a few flutters of worry when I saw the booming emptiness of the Gabba.
>> AUSTRALIA VS NEW ZEALAND: SECOND TEST LIVE BLOG
Throughout the first Test you could hear the tongue-clicking of the commentariat over the prospects of a bleak and uninteresting summer.
Much of the fear over the health of the long-form game seems to revolve around the quality of opposition. The 2015-16 season, we hear, is imperilled by the fact that after New Zealand, who provided but flimsy resistance in Brisbane, we have the West Indies facing up in the blockbuster venues of Melbourne and Sydney.
And as we all know, the current West Indian Test team is less a well-oiled machine where every finely-tuned component is working together in irresistible harmony, and more a loose collection of rusted cogs rolling around the bottom of a wheelie bin.
So the question plaguing many of those who oversee the welfare of Australian cricket is: how do we get people through the gates to watch our boys beat up a wheelie bin?
I would not suggest that these people are insincere in their concerns, or that they do not genuinely have the game’s best interests at heart. I am sure they’re all folk of good heart and that when they say the West Indian series could do irreparable damage to Test cricket’s brand, it comes from the purest motives.
But what I would say is that these gloom merchants are forgetting something, and that is the simplest and most wholesome joy that sport can offer: namely, the joy of seeing a weak opposition torn to shreds.
Remember when Steve Waugh’s mighty teams were trampling all over the rest of the cricket world? Remember how easy they made it look? Remember how pathetic other countries looked during those years?
Remember how brutally efficient the Aussies were? Remember how people said it was getting boring seeing Australia win so easily all the time? Remember how those people were incredibly wrong and actually it was great to see Australia win so easily all the time?
What could be better than watching the team, to whose star you have hitched your wagon sail to, grab victory after victory? That warm feeling a fan gets from cheering on their champions as they grind the enemy into a particularly humiliating variety of dust: it is the very spark of life itself.
The point is that all Test teams look to make their mark on history, but you can only be judged according to the quality of your opposition. Which means if you’ve got really weak opposition, you’ll be judged very highly, because you’ll win all the time.
Think of the most fabled Australian Test team of all time: Bradman’s Invincibles. Could they have rampaged across England in the manner they did if English cricket weren’t at a horrifically low ebb? Of course not! England was so weak in 1948 that they made Sam Loxton look like Keith Miller, and Keith Miller look like… I don’t know, some kind of Terminator or Batman or something.
The fact is, you can’t be invincible unless the team you’re up against is more than usually vincible. World-beaters are created only by eminently beatable worlds. What do Muhammad Ali, Usain Bolt and Serena Williams have in common? That’s right: they competed against a lot of real losers.
And let’s consider the alternative. We don’t have to reach back very far into the past to remember the nasty flavour of defeat. You might recall the black day earlier this year, when all 11 members of Australia’s Test team lined up to have Stuart Broad punch them in the face one by one. Or at least that’s how I remember it. What I’m sure of is that we lost the Ashes. And what I’m equally sure of is that it did not feel good.
Other things that did not feel good: pretty much every series Australia played between 1984 and 1989. And who was responsible for more pain in that period than anyone else? The West Indies. Strutting around, bowling bouncers, smashing sixes, and feeding on the steaming carcass of Australian cricket.
Isn’t it time we got some of our own back?
Sure, you could say we’ve been getting our own back since 2000, crushing the Windies in a long stretch of embarrassingly one-sided hidings, and it might be good for the health of the game if the balance were redressed a little. But I say, when you’re on a good thing, stick to it.
Do you think Viv Richards ever thought about the health of the game when he was swiping our bowlers left, right and centre? Did Curtly Ambrose ever worry that ‘it would be boring’ if he kept on putting batsmen into therapy until the end of time?
Of course not. The Windies of the eighties won, and won well, and their people rejoiced in their dominance. And those who were there are probably thankful they got a chance to know what it was like, given that it looks like the Windies will never approach those peaks again. If despair is a fact of life for a West Indian cricket lover, at least they have the eighties to warm them at night.
And likewise, if Australia trounces all comers this summer, we will always have that to look back on fondly should fortunes turn again in future.
Or if Test cricket ceases to exist altogether, of course. When that happens, we’ll always have the West Indies tour of 2015-16 to place in the highlights package of our hearts.
tim
Guest
You forgot Formula 1
Clavers
Guest
"Muhammad Ali, Usain Bolt and Serena Williams ... competed against a lot of real losers?" Hardly!! Ali had to beat George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Joe Bugner, Leon Spinks and Floyd Patterson, amongst others. Frazier was the more powerful man but Ali beat him in Zaire with the rope-a-dope tactic that was incredibly innovative and required enormous physical courage. Even greats of other eras like Mike Tyson acknowledge Ali as the greatest of all time. Usain Bolt is the first man to hold both the 100m and 200m world records simultaneously in the modern era, and the first man to win the "triple triple" in sprinting: three Olympic or World Championship gold medals on three separate occasions. You cannot achieve such things without beating a lot of very serious competition, multiple times over. Serena Williams has won 21 Gland Slam singles titles, and in the finals alone has beaten World Number One players Hingis, Henin, Sharapova, Wozniacki and Azarenka. Ali, Bolt and Williams, love them or hate them, are all very great champions who each beat many other champions to earn that description.
Clavers
Guest
New Zealand DOES have three batsmen of Williamson's pedigree. Ross Taylor has a Test average almost as good as Williamson's and Brendan McCullum has played some of the greatest Test innings of recent times. This New Zealand team is not weak; they have simply been outplayed by a team fortunate enough to have several players in red-hot form.
Zim Zam
Roar Rookie
Well, 5-0 drubbings all the time might be a bit much, but the 2013-14 Ashes was probably the most excited I've ever been about sport. It was just magical that things could go from so bad to so good. At the end of the day, cricket's cricket, I'll take it either way - and even if we're losing pathetically, at least we've got funny writers like Ben and Dan Liebke to get us laughing about it.
Steve
Guest
Sport is all about contests which turn and twist throughout the game, with both sides having a chance of winning.... Its what keeps us watching and fills the newspaper articles for years to come. This years nrl grand final vs the afl final, which one do u remember? I loved the 80's and early 90's contests against the windies because if we won it meant something! This season means nothing, its a no contest against inferior opposition on flat cement pitches...., what a waste of a summer!!! Boring!!!!! Give me aus being bowled out for 60 in england, give me winning in south africa, give me losing in india, because i will be watching with bittern fingernails!!!!
Pope Paul VII
Guest
true the 55 over thing was nuts and the nutty selections or lack there of.
Will Sinclair
Roar Guru
A bit of both! But I really DID enjoy those two series. That last one - with Mitchell Johnson destroying everything that moved... Just one of the all time great sporting events. Loved every minute.
Paul D
Roar Guru
England in 1948 were hamstrung by some dreadful selection decisions made off-field - Len Hutton was dropped for the third test - yes, that Len Hutton - and they also dropped Jim Laker. Interestingly too during that tour, the new ball was available after 55 overs. This favoured Australia immensely as they had a far superior pace attack in Miller, Lindwall, Johnston as well as medium pacer Toshack, whereas in spin they were less competitive against England.
Pope Paul VII
Guest
That's a good point re The Invincibles Benny which is always overlooked. They were in fact playing the Vincibles. I'm a sucker for the fighting, obscure, lost cause underdog meself wherever they hail from. Hoggy and Hurst in 78/79, Azeem Hafeez's 5/100, Martin Bicknell's 39 no at Perth to VVS' startling and largely unseen 167 in Sydney before anyone suspected he was any good.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Really? Or are you just getting into the spirit of the article? It's a pretty funny article so I don't mind, but there is no way that 5-0 drubbings are as exciting as, for example, the 2-1 triumph by Australian in 1995 to displace the Windies as the world's best. Or the England '05 series. I'd much rather watch us smash a team than lose a series, but I'd much rather again see a close contest throughout a series.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Pretty dismissive of Cook right there. Whilst Warner and Smith may go on to have finer careers, 122 tests, nearly 10,000 runs, 28 centuries and an average of 47.5 shouldn't be taken lightly...
The Bush
Roar Guru
Du Plessis might not be quite as classy as Williamson, but in 20 Tests he's averaging 48, so he's not exactly a mug. I'd say South Africa has 3 very talented top order batsman and still has the world's premier fast bowler. That's 4 players of at approximately Williamson's talent. I guess that's why they're the best team in the world...
bill
Guest
how much more competition is there for bums on seats then when the windies dominated? like in horse racing when they used to get a 100 thousand a week - then other entertainment avenues came along. Now days the lack of competition drives people elsewhere.
JohnB
Guest
Ben, I think Australians generally don't particularly like watching an opposing team getting flogged. There are some exceptions of course - for a whole range of reasons we'll happily watch England lose 5-0 every time (and we're joined in those feelings by plenty of other countries). For those of us a little older who remember Sth Africans during the apartheid era claiming they were still the champions (in both cricket and rugby) a good prolonged flogging of SA would be just fine - for those younger, the mere presence of Faf du Plessis should be enough for them to share that feeling. Again, if you're a little older, a good hammering of the WI is fine, by way of comeback for the 1980s and quietening Tony Cosier. Walloping NZ is fine too, just because they're NZ, and their cricket commentators say things like Twickenham being their favourite ground. Previously India were maybe too easy to beat such that it all got a bit embarrassing, but in recent years their strange idea that being able to win at home and having all the money puts them in charge, plus all the obnoxious sub-continental posters on every other cricket related blog, have made a good shellacking of India something to savour also. When it comes to Pakistan, who doesn't like to see a bunch of cheats shown up? Plus Javed Miandad. Seeing Sri Lanka walloped is something to enjoy for anyone who agrees they only ever had any success because Murali was allowed to play under different rules. Plus Arjuna Ranatunga. But apart from that, we utterly draw the line at getting enthused about walloping Bangladesh or Zimbabwe.
Joel
Roar Rookie
I didn't realise Steyn was a top order batsman. My mistake...
The Sheriff
Guest
Ben, you have nailed it once again. Winning sure beats losing! And, we have no control over the opposition. However, the punters who pay to go in the gate, as opposed to those who sit and watch at home, do like to have a contest. Who won the Test in Sydney in January 1961? W I v Australia.......the game was so good I cannot even remember and I was there. Maybe I spent a bit of time at the bar......
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
“Another Test side, with two or even three players of Williamson’s pedigree” Just wanted to point out that this team you speak of doesn’t exist. Name a team that have 3 players up to the same standard." SA have 3 players as good as Williamson in AB, Steyn and Amla.
sham
Guest
It is a sign of progress that most people no longer turn up to watch public floggings.
Paul D
Roar Guru
Reading this I picture that scene from Monty Python's the Meaning of LIfe, where the schoolmasters are playing the schoolkids in rugby and flogging the bejesus out of them. Despite winning by about 146-0 the schoolmasters are still jumping around and dancing on the sidelines like they've won the world cup.
Joel
Roar Rookie
"Another Test side, with two or even three players of Williamson’s pedigree" Just wanted to point out that this team you speak of doesn't exist. Name a team that have 3 players up to the same standard.