Roger Alton Roger Alton

One-day cricket can make even a turbo-charged century tedious

Plus: the record-breaking Lindsey Vonn

What a remarkable innings that was in Johannesburg earlier this week when South Africa’s admirable Hashim Amla carried his bat throughout the 50-over match against West Indies for 153 off just 142 balls. Or perhaps you didn’t notice. Coming in at the 39th over after the dismissal of R.R. Rossouw (for a mere 128) was A.B. de Villiers, who proceeded to smash endless one-day records with 149 off 44 balls. His reached his century (31 balls) in just 40 minutes: I’ve seen people take longer to get their pads on. De Villiers completely overshadowed Amla’s pedestrian 153, and if the rest of the South African team had scored at the same pace as De Villiers, the team would have scored more than 1,000. Presumably they have had to do extra nets for not applying themselves.

This is in the same vein as India’s Rohit Sharma, who has been scoring huge double centuries in 50-over cricket. The upcoming World Cup could be where scores of 300-plus become standard. And when you need at least one of your top order to start getting big hundreds, England may well begin to find the absence of Kevin Pietersen more than a little uncomfortable.

So here’s the thing: is scoring sixes every ball entertaining, or does reducing cricket to a video game become a bit tedious? Give me Monty Panesar hanging on to save a Test match any day. England’s easy win over India, thanks to some great bowling from Stephen Finn, was actually pretty dull. Still, at least they’ve got Andrew Flintoff to help them in the nets. Though is Fred quite the stardust England need? All that ‘look at me, Jesus’ posturing after he took a wicket with a long hop could get irritating, and his figures, a few bursts aside, never really backed up his talent.

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