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Vive la difference: Embracing change in cricket

26th November, 2015
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David Warner is one of the most powerful athletes in world cricket. (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
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26th November, 2015
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Somewhere in the depths of Steve Waugh’s 720-page magnum opus, Out of My Comfort Zone, published a decade ago, lies a passage on the impact of one-day cricket on the Test format:

“Contrary to popular belief, one-day cricket didn’t erode batting skills – it improved them. Batsmen expanded their repertoires, invented new shots and got into the habit of being positive and proactive in everything they did.”

Watching David Warner bat on Day 1 of the second Test against New Zealand and Waugh’s words were being played out live, in front of our eyes. Only they didn’t apply to one-day cricket; they applied to an even shorter version – Twenty20.

As Australia looks to embark on the fifth edition of its Big Bash League, how fitting that one of its biggest exports should be plying his trade, and dominating, on what has long been perceived the pinnacle – Test cricket. Introduced as a crass, colourful and temporary boost to the dwindling cricket crowds more than a decade ago, many – myself included – were quick to dismiss its merits.

The ride hasn’t been entirely smooth – no success story would be complete without its hurdles. The Indian Premier League, introduced amidst great fanfare and swathes of money, saw the Americanisation of a game to a degree that many thought had gone too far. Loud music, scantily clad cheerleaders paraded before braying crowds, and flashy gold-rimmed kits overflowing with sponsors logos became the norm. Conflicts of interest, corruption and match-fixing allegations have been rife throughout.

Yet the IPL is now the most watched and lucrative in the cricketing world. The broadcasting rights almost exclusively drive the treasure troves of the BCCI, and from this their position as the superpower of world cricket. Like it or loathe it, Twenty20 cricket is a world force. Not only has it changed the game, it’s changed the powerbase of the game – unthinkable only a decade before.

It’s easy to equate Twenty20 cricket, or any new innovation in the game, with big money alone. Cricket Australia, with the BBL, are adamant that it isn’t so. They promote the BBL as a pathway into the sport – a way to attract new fans, young, old, male, and increasingly female too.

This year sees the launch of the inaugural women’s BBL, the WBBL, and already the overseas stars, headline sponsors and broadcasting rights are honing in. In the women’s game, with a paucity of Tests and longer format games to revere, Twenty20 cricket is the face, and the future, of women’s cricket.

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T20 now, once the frontier of change, has evolved into the fuel that lights the fire of cricket worldwide. Last month an unthinking reference on social media to David Warner and Aaron Finch as ‘big-hitting T20 bully boys coming good in the longer format’ received a justified rebuke. A quick referral of the stats shows that Warner now has 15 centuries from 45 Tests – a ton every three matches. As Geoff Lemon notes, of all batsmen with 1000 runs in the history of Test cricket, Warner’s almost at the top of the tree.

How easily the label of T20 bish-bash-bosh is ingrained on one’s memory. How should a Test match batsman play, we wondered? Not like Warner, whose longest Test stint amounted to just 174 balls until his marathon innings earlier this month.

How hard we all tried to dislike Warner and his brash approach. Yet this man, whose Test debut came almost three years after his first T20 International outing, is now ranked fifth in the world. Shorter form cricket, as Waugh observed, hasn’t “eroded batting skills”, it’s created one of the best Test batsmen of this generation.

Every change in a game challenges our perceptions of what cricket should entail. The pink ball is now the topic du jour. Why? It doesn’t behave like a cricket ball should. Longevity in the ball’s shape, hardness, swing and sight define how we think Test cricket should be played.

But is there really something that Test cricket should be but that ODI cricket should not, and which allows the one-day game to get away with a white ball? Before 1975, it was without question that one-day cricket should be played in white clothing. My generation on the other hand, born in the Nineties, has grown up knowing only that this format should be played in coloured clothing with white balls. Mike Selvey in The Guardian questions why we are even debating the pink ball. Why is it not already the case that Test cricket should be played with a white ball and coloured clothing?

The concept of what cricket, in all its formats, should and should not be is dynamic. Some change may prove detrimental further down the line – many of us believed T20 would be to the more prised longer formats.

Warner, Jos Buttler and AB de Villiers are but a few who continue to challenge that assumption. Questions, probing and scrutiny are integral to this unique sport, but so too is change. T20 cricket, a radical move a decade ago, changed the game for the good. Who knows what a splash of pink might do.

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