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*Glenn Maxwell batting for the Melbounre
Stars in Australia’s Big Bash League
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THE SHORT GAME
THE SHORT GAME
EVOLUTION OR A DUMBING DOWN?
P
eople of a certain age will
remember a time when test
cricket was all there was. Long
summers framed by the traditional
rivals (less the boycotted apartheid-
era South Africa) slogging it out
over five days. The droning of the
oscillating fan, newspapers spread
out over the floor, the long breaks
as Dennis Lillee or Jeff Thompson
trudged back to their marks, and
Geoffrey Boycott slowly reached 50.
Cricket was not so much a sport
as a rhythm, a back-drop to the
summer months.
In 2017, cricket comes in a few
different guises, and one of them
has some traditionalists worried
about the future of test cricket.
Declining crowds and some tours
only televised on pay-tv, the
white flannels be-grimed from
shining a red ball slowly being
replaced by lurid team colours and
cheerleaders.
T20 seems to be in ascendance,
where anything can happen on
any given ball. No gimmick is too
cheesy not to be part of this low-
brow game of glorified tip ‘n’ run:
mic’d up players chatting about the
state of play, anthems from Queen
belted out on the loud speakers
after any big slog, along with every
conceivable method for advertising
fried chicken or online betting.
It is as garish as it is fun.
Yet cricket is not the only sport
where the stream-lined form is
making people turn from the
original long-form game. Rugby
Sevens is loved by many who would
not show up to see the 15s, and golf
is attempting to move away from its
famously soporific weekend drone.
If sport is about entertainment,
spectacle and excitement, then
surely the stream-lined form is
about to consign the traditional
sports to extinction. Call it sporting
Darwinism.
On the face of it, choosing
Sevens as Rugby’s representative at
the Olympics makes a lot of sense.
The game is considerable shorter,
having two seven minute halves (or
10, if it is a final), and being played
on a regular-sized field with fewer
players, the focus is on quick hands
and even quicker feet. With only
seven players per team, there are
quite a few holes through which to
duck and score.
Plus the scrum, such a blight
on the 15s version, consists of only
three players per team and has no
chance of collapsing.
It is an electric, muscular game
with none of the quagmire lethargy
seen so often in the 15s, which
makes it much more attractive for
the uninitiated.
T20 is similar in its approach.
During a test, overs that feature six
non-scoring shots are common:
and are a sight that many a purist
enjoys. In T20, players need to risk
their wickets in order to hit the
boundary. Reducing playing time
from five days down to about three
hours and 20 overs means that
spectators see shots every couple
of balls that they would have to
wait half an hour for in a test.
This year, the Melbourne Cricket
Ground has seen attendances for
T20 top 80,000.
Perhaps the greatest challenge
to test cricket comes in the form
of the Indian Premier League.
Massive short-term contracts lure
internationals from across the
world to slog for cash. The money
on offer dwarves that paid by many
cricket associations around the
world, and when a series intersects
with the IPL, players must make
a choice: tradition or many, many
rupees.
Golf is up to it too. In 2011,
TimothyMottram