There is so much appalling news of war and brutality in the world, it might be thought that the failure of a national sporting team would be considered a relatively small matter. But not in Australia. Not when it comes to cricket.
The Australian cricket team has just been worsted by a South African eleven in a three match test series in Australia that has left Australians distraught. The Ozzies were long acknowledged as the strongest and most consistent players of test match cricket. The Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, South Africans, West Indians, the English and even first class cricket’s relative newcomers the Bangladeshis, have their winning streaks and their individual star players such as the West Indies’ remarkable Brian Lara. But it was the Australian test team that ground out the regular wins, backed up by phalanxes of sports psychologists and an unwaveringly ferocious desire to win.
Now Australian cricket fans - which means pretty much every Australian - are in despair. Following the innings defeat by South Africa in the final test this week in Hobart their sport is declared to be in crisis and there are calls for heads to roll.
At first blush, this merciless attitude to sporting failure overlooks the reality that in any contest, there is going to be a loser as well as a winner. But, of course, cricket is different. It is one of the few games that can end in a draw. Moreover, during the five days of a full test match there is a wide range of opportunities for tactics, for steady defensive play or for aggressive attack. The presence of sports psychologists, whose use the Australian Cricket Board was quick to adopt, is not in the least bit laughable. The five-day battle of a test match has as much to do with morale as it does with guts.
But it is also a lot to do with experience and the game of cricket has changed radically in the last 40 years. Ironically, it was an Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer who is responsible for the mess in which cricket generally and the Australian test team in particular currently find themselves. Packer introduced World Series Cricket that emphasized one-day games, introduced razzmatazz, colored team garb and white balls that would show up under the spotlights when games were played at night. The emphasis was on spectacle and aggression - so much so that it was in the WSC games that helmets and face guards were first introduced to protect batsmen.
There is a world of difference between a one-day, limited overs knockabout and a multi-day contest where tactics are every bit as important as scintillating skill. The Indian Cricket League has taken on what Packer started and changed the sport yet again into a major money-spinning spectacle that has attracted enthusiastic TV audiences from around the world. But as with football and other sports where billions of dollars are involved, corruption and match fixing have reared their disfiguring head.
It is surely unfair to expect professional cricketers who spend most of their careers playing one-day or limited-over games to adapt their play for the more subtle and sophisticated demands of the five-day test game. Maybe it is time to accept that the traditional test match series is pretty-well doomed thanks to the money-grabbing antics of a media mogul who in 1977 failed to win the rights to broadcast a real test match series, so set up his alternative.
