The short form of the game has come as a mixed blessing for cricket.
It has attracted more people to the game and the increased action – the possibility of catching one of many huge sixes – is almost worth the price of admission alone.
The shorter, more accessible format has allowed cricket to expand its audience beyond those dedicated to the sporting chess match that is Test cricket.
But with this has come the loss of one of the most exciting aspects of cricket – strategically aggressive bowling.
To appeal to the crowds who want to see ‘bombs’ rather than flying stumps, wickets around the world have become flatter, harder, and remarkably lifeless. Bowlers from around the world turn up to T20 and ODI matches just to get smashed to all corners of the ground – to the glee and delight of the thousands of eagerly watching fans.
Bats are thicker, wickets are flatter, and the boundaries get smaller and smaller (in the name of ‘safety’, but why do they keep creeping inwards?). It has truly become a batsman’s game.
But somewhere along the line, curators and officials alike have forgotten that cricket is a game of two sides. Test wickets are beginning to become equally lifeless, bowlers are slowly becoming restricted, and the benefit of the doubt seems to be edging its way even further towards the batsman.
‘It makes the game entertaining,’ they will argue, but at what point does entertainment come to the detriment of the game? And at what point do the bowlers and fielders become so alienated that cricket becomes closer to a game of tee-ball than the sport that had so many entranced in the 1970s and ’80s?
This brings me to Mitchell Johnson, a bowler who only six months prior to today would strike fear into the heart of any batsman coming to the crease, regardless of whether or not they’d like to admit it.
His aggressive, fiery fast bowling recalled the bowling of the immortal West Indies attack of the ’70s and ’80s, disregarding the safety of the batsman and bombarding them with balls at the body until they would submit. Johnson destroyed the English batting line-up in Australia only two years ago, yet now he is playing his last day of Test and international cricket.
How does the best bowler in the world fall from grace so quickly?
Sure he has dropped a couple of yards of pace, and sure the death of Phillip Hughes has had a great effect upon the way he now plays, but how could a bowler who would turn games and tear batting line-ups asunder so quickly find himself bowling innings of 1-150 and 0-100?
It is the result of cricket finally losing itself in its own marketing.
The pitches prepared for the last two Test matches in Australia, at The Gabba and WACA respectively, have lacked the life of pitches in the past. They’re hardly differentiable. They are hard, flat and offer nothing but prime batting conditions.
The only reason the first Test yielded a result was on the back of a visibly underprepared New Zealand collapse. Fast forward to today and you have a Test reaching its fifth day, and it is only the third innings. Both first innings totals were upwards of 550, and nearly all of the bowlers have had their averages destroyed. It was a similar tale at The Gabba.
Johnson was close to the pick of the bowlers at The Gabba. Hell, if we were to compare the performances of all bowlers in the series so far, there would be a handful who should be retiring ahead of him.
Johnson’s retirement, although not entirely surprising considering his admittance that it is a thought that often crosses his mind, is not the result of a player who has become too old for the game. Rather, it is the result of short-form cricket finally usurping the competition of Test cricket to replace it with endless displays of batting.
It is the logical conclusion of cricket as ‘entertainment’.
Johnson’s retirement, as such, is not just the end of an amazing fast bowler’s career. It also marks the end of aggressive fast bowling.
You may ask about Mitchell Starc and his ability to perform on these wickets, but, ultimately, what must be realised is that he prides himself on swing and toe-crushing yorkers. He doesn’t rely on the pitch to provide some bounce and seam as Johnson so often did.
These dead pitches have provided nothing; bouncers have sat up, begging to be hit, and good length balls have played so true that it may as well be a Test match played down the road at the local syntho.
It is not entirely the fault of the curators. Some onus has to fall upon the ball manufacturers and officials.
The red ball is now unable to hold a shine, and is falling apart at a rate unprecedented. It may be a bad batch but, looking upon the scores of the past few series in Australia and abroad (excluding England, they use the Duke), it seems to be a bit more than that.
Games that showcase the worth of quality bowling seem harder and harder to find, and runs galore seems to be the ongoing meal of the day, and the progression of cricket is only promoting this further.
On the eve of the unprecedented day-night Test to take place in only a week or so, the Australian spearhead won’t be there to take part, he won’t be there to bowl with the pink ball, to have a proper send-off even. He will be on the sidelines, cheering the boys on, in the hope of another victory over the Kiwis.
But at the end of the day, this retirement marks more than just the end of a career. Cricket has finally succumbed to commercial expectation, and soon T20, ODI, and Test matches alike will become all variations of the same slogfest.
All I’m waiting for is the free hit to be introduced to the Test format, and for the bouncers to be further restricted for ‘preservation’ of the batsman. We will see a new era of fast bowlers, an era of players like Starc who all bowl yorkers and full tosses.
Maybe we won’t even need a pitch, and maybe we could even make the batsman run in a diamond, and have the bowler stand on a mound and get rid of the needless run-up.
Wait a second, doesn’t this sound familiar?
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