25th May 1999
A WORD IN YOUR EAR
Is cricket the new football? Well... no. But it's not for want of trying. The organisers
of World Cup 99 have obviously been studying what went on at USA 94 .
First we have the ball. One of the tricks FIFA used to sell the Beautiful Game in
America was to introduce a ball that, like a child's football, was impossible to
hit in a straight line. Goalkeepers attempting to stop a shot struck from thirty
yards out were forced into making split-second reaction saves as the ball suddenly changed direction
when it crossed the six-yard line. This made for some entertaining viewing for the
neutral supporter (thank you to Mr G Taylor of Watford for making us neutrals in
USA 94). It also reinforced the importance of diving and other forms of cheating so
beloved of players from the Axis powers and their former allies - because free-kicks
became quite unstoppable. In this year's cricket World Cup we have the English white ball. The white cricket
ball was invented in Australia in 1977 by one of Kerry Packer's satanic henchmen, in
order to improve the televisual marketability of a game which was being stultified
by white clothing and a dull red ball. However, despite its raunchy pallidity,
the Antipodean white ball remained, essentially, a cricket ball. The World Cup 99
ball, on the other hand, seems to have been made to resemble the planet Saturn.
The seam is visible from spy satellites. A good-length delivery, pitching on the seam,
behaves like an American smart bomb. It could land anywhere from
fine leg to Finland. Fielders are cowering. Umpires are developing Arnie-esque
pectorals from calling twenty, thirty, fifty wides in a innings.
Batsmen are getting out. It is becoming a five-a-side game, as the ball only becomes
playable once the batsmen are dispensed with and the bowlers have come in to bat.
South Africa and Pakistan, who bat to number 10, are winning hands down. For the
supporters, it is quite fun. There are few more enjoyable sights than seeing a lower-order
semi-all-rounder belting his rival fast bowlers all over the park, and few more poignant
sights than watching Darren Gough walk out with his arms swinging as if
he's going to belt someone all over the park. But (and I had to say it sooner or
later) it's not cricket.
Well I suppose it is, in a way. Anyone who plays cricket at school or at work will
recognise the phenomenon where the people who get the wickets also make all the runs,
and the other five players are there to make up the numbers at third man, long on
and deep, deep cover. They're also the ones who end up playing for the other team when they haven't
brought enough fielders (like Roger Twose and Graeme Hick).
And then there's all this business with the deaf-aids. The justification for this,
apparently, is that it saves time. No more spurious calls for a new bat or an unsullied
box, with information surruptitiously passed on; the coach simply "calls the play"
to the team through the wireless. OK, before I get too Luddite about this (and I really, really
hate the idea of cricket becoming a programmed game like American football) I'm going
to stop. There's nothing useful I can say... it is wrong, it is completely against
the spirit of the game, and whoever thought it up should be sentenced to live with Geoff
Boycott. There, I've said it.
What I really want to mention is that one of the players wearing an earpiece was Alan
Donald. Let me just repeat that, Alan Donald - now the second-fastest fast bowler
in the world, and still the best. His bowling action is a beautiful, flowing picture
of sublime malevolence rivalling that of Dennis Lillee or Malcolm Marshall. He looks
like the result of a Nazi experiment to create an Aryan superman, and he paints himself
with suncream to resemble one of Shaka's warriors. He exudes menace, and is frighteningly good. And
he is being told what to do by... Bob Woolmer. The same Bob Woolmer whose action had more
in common with breaststroke than bowling. Mediocrity personified. What the hell can
Bob Woolmer teach Alan Donald about fast bowling??? I might as well be telling Brian
Lara how to bat.
Cricket should stop trying to learn from other sports, and get on with developing
itself in its own way. The Super Sixes were (I think) an original invention, and
they are the fairest way of deciding a tournament finalist that I have ever seen.
Football could learn from that. Setting up venues so that they are full of people and atmosphere, even for the unglamourous
matches, by playing them at places like Taunton and Chester-le-Street - that's a
good one too. Football wouldn't dare.
Make cricket the new cricket (but keep the floodlit games please - I never said I
was consistent).
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