Mr Cricket: White, stale and male

The unabashed celebrity of Shane Warne’s running commentary on ‘Australian cricket’ belies the dangers of peroxide blonde tips leaking into the central nervous system.

Forever tagged as the greatest leg spinner to have ever lived, the great Australian ego cannot seem to be content with the boundless, rose-tinted praise that befalls a man who enacted more revolutions on a leather sphere than all others.

The simplicity of what Warne performed on the cricket pitch does not diminish his extraordinary cricketing prowess, but rather heightens it. He was a formidable opponent who enjoyed the complexities that encompass the simple act of bowling a cricket ball – the theatre of the contest, the personalities of the actors and the mental grind that grips the sporting voyeur.

However, the widely misconceived notion in the sports pages of Australia is that a celebrated sporting career can be as easily replicated in the media. These so-called purveyors of truth can be the most insightful, but also the most tedious.

Our expectations of sports commentators is to transport us to the narrative of the game. Great callers know when silence is golden and the precise moment to fill the void, driving us forever deeper into the contest.

Sport can be a riveting pursuit that distills all aspects of human society into the merest of moments, grabbing you by the scruff of the neck with an energy and verve ever onward.

The platform that Warne and others of his ilk (read Kevin Pietersen, Michael Slater et al) have is irrespective of their ability to dissect and analyse the game, but rather they parody and prance in pursuit of personal celebrity. It is a pathetic symptom of modern sport.

It is these transparent attempts to remain front and centre in the contemporary cricketing lexicon that now roll on from the ashes of Nine and into Rupert’s FoxSports pantomime. Dripping with sponsor logos and the banality of Australian pay television, cricket as ‘entertainment’ will endure on the whims of another archaic broadcaster buried in Kerry Packer’s bitter shadow.

We retain Warne and co with the comic relief of Skull O’Keefe (in what is personally a crushing blow as an avid and long time ABC Grandstand listener) craftily inserted to remind the boys club that there is a job at hand.

Final condemnation will be reserved till the summer’s conclusion, but the deft movements of Optus to snatch the English Premier League from Fox’s stable reminds one that sport is now firmly a commodity of the masters for the masses.

Shane Warne of Australia (Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)

As Geoff Lemon wrote in 2015 of the Channel Nine broadcast team and cricket commentary more broadly, “There’s no surer path to monotony and a crushingly limited world view – and let’s not even start on the place of women in the game. Cricket needs people whose aptitude as analysts, entertainers and public speakers is tested ahead of batting or bowling.”

It’s a simple cry for respect.

Warne is currently trying to sell what will undoubtedly be a best selling book – Dad’s Christmas stocking filler, if you will.

Australia’s recent capitulation to Pakistan in the UAE has given rise to a plethora of ‘new’ Australian XI’s, Warne’s most notably catching the media’s attention.

Change is always an easy and clear route when such a Test series has eventuated, but to disregard the inexperience of Marnus Labuschange, Travis Head, Aaron Finch and co in a batting line up devoid of confidence and class for more change is a slippery slope.

Pakistan in the UAE has always been a tricky assignment for Australian teams, even when fully strengthened, and against the growing prowess of Mohammed Abbas, the Australian top order was exposed.

Justin Langer will rightly persist with the debutants and so he should. The Marsh brothers are more intriguing: superb recent Australian summers and now catapulted into the senior ranks, they will be under immense pressure to retain their spots.

Justin Langer (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Mitchell Marsh is most definitely not a top five Test batsman and that experiment must be deemed a failure.

More so, his contribution with the ball will not save him if Marcus Stoinis finds the ODI form that announced his international arrival in New Zealand.

Comparatively, older brother Shaun’s nomadic travels in and out of the side must surely be over with Khawaja’s injury and the inexperience of the remaining top order.

A superb batsman on his day, his persistence and mental fortitude to forge on against the moniker of batting scapegoat – bestowed upon by the ravenous Australian public – suggests a man whose desire to play cricket goes far deeper than credited.

It is within this intriguing paradigm of team selection in the new Langer era that Warne now finds himself.

Billed regularly as one of the greatest cricketing minds, it is thus so disappointing that his moments of cricketing clarity and insight are so tediously enveloped by monologues of boastful indulgence. You can be a cricketing genius, but you also need to know when to shut up and let others find their voice.