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The last two Tests of the most recent Ashes series showed why the one-day game can never be Test cricket. In Melbourne, the action rose and fell dramatically over five days. The English team were noble triers, undermanned and undermined by their country’s own stultifying system, led by an immigrant’s son who had fallen quickly and hard from his exalted position. The story was powerfully subtended by the question of Waugh’s survival. The forces were ranged against our hero. He scored a flashing 77 to put his selection, seemingly, beyond doubt. But then, on the final day, he was forced to bat again to avert catastrophe for himself and his team. He failed, in a short and controversial innings. This dramatic last moment of suspense raised more questions. The English bowlers looked to have their tails up, as though they’d had a moment of revelation. But after the pure theatre of that near-catastrophe, Waugh’s team won the match. Ultimately, it set the scene for the bitter-sweet Sydney game. burberry collared shirts ,
At the end of each day, the developments of a day’s Test cricket are the topic of conversation in lounge rooms and pubs around the country. These twists and turns in the plot just don’t happen in one-day cricket, or any other sport, for that matter. It’s like comparing a rollicking novel with a clever slogan. Yes, it’s unique to former colonies, and an object of ridicule to Americans who know of it, but let America have instant gratification in all things. burberry swimwear women , To seek their approval is another way of cringing.
Test cricket has something limited-overs cricket needs: a variety of finishing scenarios. Crowds don’t necessarily go to limited-overs games to see batsmen who might otherwise fail at Test level slap bowlers all over the ground. They go to see exciting contests and speculate about the way they might end.
Perhaps the best way to ensure the one-day game reflects Test cricket, and vice versa, is for the ICC to experiment with a two-innings-a-side format. Martin Crowe had the right idea with Cricket Max, invented back in the late ‘90s. It introduced the spectator to the principles of Test cricket by mimicking the two-innings-a-team format (ten 8-ball overs), but retained the compressed form of one-day cricket. It’s easy to elaborate the two-innings concept for international consumption. The one-day game’s current predictability can be rectified.
But innovations can only be judged by their intent, and the ICC and home boards should take heed. Commercially motivated interests who see youth as little more than a hormone-driven, thrill-seeking market won’t introduce anything for the betterment of the game. Their intention will be, simply, to “capture the youth market. ” The equation of youth with low standards and short attention spans is an introduction of the law of diminishing fleas. If the logic is followed to its furthest degree, one day no-one will have the aptitude or the attitude to play Test cricket. burberry women bikini , What youth actually need ?and what cricket needs to give them - are heroes who achieve spectacularly at both forms of the game.
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