T20 whack action is the stuff of Mike Whitney's dreams

On Day 3 of the Centenary Test of 1977, 20-year-old David Hookes took to Tony Greig’s bowling with the gusto of a hungry, athletic kid on a piñata chock-full of Cherry Ripes.

The great Hookesy whacked five – five! – straight boundaries to all parts of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

In a game that could often be staid – and which had seen its first ever ODI just six years previously – Hookesy’s whack action had the masses verily baying.

For there they were in their tens of thousands, these shirtless, thong-clapping larrikins called Wayne and Trevor, Kevin and Bruce, proclaiming through the warm sweet fug of KB Lager-breath that Hookesy’s batting was “unreal” and “grouse” and other vernacular in vogue at the time – could’ve been “groovy”, don’t think it was.

Regardless, the late, great Hookesy flogged the late, great Greigy, and people are talking of it still today.

Which is sort of interesting given the other day, on a phone smarter than the greatest super-computer hidden in a purpose-built bunker in the bowels of the Pentagon in 1977, a vibration in my pants pocket informed me that Usman Khawaja of the Sydney Thunder had just whacked 85 off 51 balls, with 8 fours and 4 sixes, in a 20-over Big Bash match against the Brisbane Heat.

And I thought, “Well – how about that.”

But it wasn’t like, “Well! How about that!” It was more, “Well, I don’t really give a stuff.”

Don’t get me wrong – I was a bit irked I didn’t get to see it given I was eating mother-in-law’s chicken surprise (I first thought it was fish). It would’ve been good to see the great Uzzy – my man – whack the white ball about.

But it wasn’t like I was all hot-freakin-beauty-amaze-balls that the silky left-hander with the flashes of David Gower had so rendered the Heat asunder with a display of beautiful, power whack-action. Because they’re all doing it. It’s how you bat. In the BBL, that’s just… batting.

Ten years ago, maybe, it would’ve been a bit wow. Even five years ago you might’ve thought, wow! But today? Not so much. Been done, the big whackin’, low ballin’ bat action. Done and done.

AAP Image/David Mariuz

What can it all possibly mean?

I dunno. It’s all happening so fast. Pink Kookaburras are pinging about under blood-orange skies in Adelaide while loose-limbed Caribbean cool guys are just about ex-communicated from Australia because they’re hopeless at flirting with girls on TV.

How can one make sense of this? What is doing, Modern Times In Which We Live?

Chris Lynn is doing, for one. How about him? What a big whacker he is. He’s always been a big whacker, Lynn, but his Big Bash whacking, he’s been the biggest whacker of all.

Kumar Sangakkara once described Lynna as a “force of nature”, comparing his big whack-action to Matt Hayden’s, which is something I once did on the Twitter with Andy Maher from the radio, and if you’d read this paragraph aloud to someone in 1977 they’d have called you a drongo and donged you on the bonce with a half-crushed tinnie.

But that Lynn, he sure can whack ‘em.

But then so can plenty of them.

Couple years ago, Darren Lehmann’s young bloke Jake whacked his first and only ball for six to win a match for Strikers against Hurricanes, something that was only contemplated in the fantasy realms of Toohey’s advertisements in 1977.

Fantasy? Too right. Because, Pfffft – please. As if Steve Rixon could hit Dennis Lillee for six at all, let alone last ball with six needed to win.

See also Mike Whitney getting a half-volley from Joel freakin’ Garner – the Big Bird, nearly seven foot tall – on the last ball of some NSW versus Windies match, unleashing a cover-drive, and running three to win the game.

That would not happen in Mike Whitney’s dreams. If Mike Whitney dreamed that, even in his dreams he’d be like, “This is bullshit.”

Regardless, today Lynn is the best and biggest whacker of all, which is saying something given he plays in the same team as noted whack man, Brendon McCullum.

Lynn took over from Aaron Finch, who took over from Chris Gayle, who took over from Virender Sehwag.

And around Lynn there’s any number of giant whack men, all whacking away, in big whacking leagues, all over the world.

Again: what is the meaning of this? You know what? It’s all happening too fast; nobody really knows.

[latest_videos_strip category=”cricket” name=”Cricket”]

There is speculation. Like the kid John Connor says in Terminator 2, “The future is unset.” Which means there is excitement and fear in equal parts.

Some of us are enjoying the ride. Some of us worry what it can all possibly mean. Political ideology can be like this. Left and right. Yin and yang. One man’s progressive whack-action is another’s conservative hellscape, something like it.

Just like World Series Cricket in 1977, merchants of doom would have it that T20 cricket is “destroying” Test cricket.

Yet apart from Tests featuring cricket’s Big Money Three – Australia, England and India – Test cricket is… well, it’s not very groovy, is it? Test cricket is a square, man.

And T20 is Austin Powers without the bad teeth. T20 is groovy, and happening, man, and there appears to be no stopping it.

Bats are bazookas and bowlers are the stuff they fed into cannons on Russell Crowe’s battleship in that crackerjack movie Master and Commander: Something Blah Blah on the High Seas.

But here’s the thing: How long, oh Lord? How long?

How long before all this big-whacking man action becomes, to coin some of today’s vernacular, myeeah. How long until a batsman hitting six or eight or 12 sixes in a row becomes normal? How long until it’s expected that batsmen hit every single ball for six?

And then how long then until we get tired of every ball being hit for six?

Might bats – and hence sixes – have to get even bigger? Might you get eight or ten for certain massive bits of a big whack-man action?

I dunno. Maybe. There’s stuff happening today if you’d told people ten years ago would happen they’d have said, “Please, there’s more chance of Donald Trump being president.”

What’s certain is this: big whack-action cricket leagues have blossomed around the planet. Marquee men ply their wares on globe-trotting FIFO cash contracts, short-term employees of corporate franchises who horse-trade man-flesh for many score crore rupees – crore being an Indian term useful for counting numbers with too many zeros.

We’ve come a long way in a short period of time. So far that 5 fours in a row – sorry, Hookesy – it wouldn’t itch the phone in your pants pocket.