Under a dark sapphire sky, tearing across grass as green as a lick of new paint, Mitchell Starc raced in to launch the first ball of the latest Australia vs India Test series last Friday. The murmur from the crowd of more than 30,000 at Perth’s Optus Stadium grew louder with every stride the tall, lean quickie took as he neared his point of delivery… is there anything more exciting than Test cricket at its best?
In countries that still take the five-day game seriously, big crowds still
fill big arenas
Most sporting contests start slowly – the cautious boxers circling each other, the centre forward tapping the ball backwards from the kick-off. But Test cricket – dozy old Test cricket, a five-day yawnfest you might think from what you hear about the future of the game – is different. The first ball is a signature delivery, a warning to the opposition of what is to come.
Starc, a fearsome left-armer, has form of course. Just ask Rory Burns, the Surrey captain, bowled behind his legs with the first ball of the 2021 Ashes series in Brisbane, an inswinging ripper from the jubilant Starc. Starc tried it again last Friday against another left-hander, the 22-year-old genius that is Yashasvi Jaiswal, but this time the ball didn’t swing in and rocketed past for four byes.
It’s scenes like these – with the excitement potentially replicated every time a ball is bowled – that make you wonder why Test cricket is seen as being moribund. Five days, the theory goes, is simply too long in this age when gratification has to be instantly served up, and when people don’t have the time to go to watch cricket on Monday afternoons.
So why is it then that in countries that still take the five-day game seriously – England, Australia and, to a lesser extent, India – big crowds do still fill big arenas? In September for example, with England 2-0 up in their three Test series against a largely underperforming Sri Lanka, if you turned up at the Oval hoping to buy a ticket you’d be disappointed. It seems that no one has told the marketing men that red ball cricket still exists and can be a thing of wonder if only they would get behind it.
And what a game that match in Perth was. In the end it was too one-sided to be a great contest – Australia being thrashed by 295 runs, despite destroying the Indian top order on the first morning – but on the way it was as vibrant an experience as almost anything sport has to offer. For a start, there was the spectacle of Jaiswal – a generational talent born into extreme poverty before travelling to Mumbai and camping out on the streets selling food to earn the money to learn his cricket, and still not looking old enough to get served in the Dog and Duck – scoring a brilliant, patient 161. He shared a big partnership with Virat Kohli, the king returning to form with a superb century and tearfully saluting his equally weepy wife up in the stands as India closed their innings.
There was some terrifyingly threatening fast bowling from the Australian triumvirate, as well as the best bowler in the world, Jasprit Bumrah, who took eight wickets in the game. And where there’s fast bowling there should be sledging. After Harshit Rana sent a bouncer whistling past Starc, batting at the end of the Aussie innings, Starc turned to him: ‘Harshit, I bowl faster than you and I’ve got a long memory.’ Marnus Labuschagne, the God-fearing Australian no. 3, who, as my mother used to say, has got a tongue on him, was engaged in a spectacular row with Mohammed Siraj, who doesn’t give much quarter either, after some excessively theatrical calling which didn’t go down well with Siraj.
I don’t have anything against white ball cricket, but nothing can match a great red ball game. We should just make sure enough people know about it. It was ominous that coverage of this fantastic game was overshadowed by the IPL auction. Oh dear.
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