Clemency suggests

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Spectator Sport

Roger Alton

Wednesday, 9th April 2008

Indian summers

Meanwhile is Test cricket in trouble? The first three days of all this spring’s Test series against New Zealand have been sold out for months. New Zealand for heaven’s sake! On the other hand the current West Indies/Sri Lanka series, a theoretically succulent offering, is being played out to largely empty stands in the Caribbean as far as one see from the television. And are we witnessing the slow death of the fast bowler? With the exception of Brett Lee, who’s knocking on a bit, Shoaib Akhtar, who’s possessed of a death wish, and South Africa’s Dale Steyn, a truly brilliant prospect, the incessant cricket seems to be killing off the quicks.

And the batsmen are able to feast on pretty mediocre bowling. Leading players now average more than 55, some in the 60s. A generation or so ago, it was only the real greats who had averages of around 50: Richards, Gavaskar, Border — a proper elite. Between Lawrence Rowe scoring a triple ton in the early 1970s and Graham Gooch in the 1990s, there were no triple centuries in Test cricket. Now they seem to be coming thick and fast, an absolute rocket of one from India’s Sehwag only the other day. Of course cricket has to change, and MCC is dealing with it pretty well. But we mustn’t lose sight of some of the real strengths of the game.

The English language doesn’t have words to do justice to quite how much F1 chief Max ‘Spanker’ Mosley and McLaren boss Ron Dennis loathe each other. It was Spanker of course who fined McLaren $100 million over the ‘Spygate’ saga last year. So — oh to have been a flying duck on the wall at Dennis’s substantial pile the other day when the News of the World dropped with its fabulous exposé of Spanker’s leisure pursuits.