Cricket, Lovely Cricket

Having spent much of the week glorying in England(1)'s achievement in finally recovering the Ashes, now seems as good a time as any to deliver some fulsome praise to the game I love(2). Thanks to the revolution in the game started by the Aussies back in the 90's, cricket has become the definitive sport, compared with which anything else is mere tiddlywinks. A grand claim, you say? Well, perhaps it is but it's one I think I can justify: let's take the ingredients of sport and see how many boxes cricket can tick ...

1. Athleticism. For a long time this was cricket's bete noire. These days, thankfully, the pudgy slow-left-arm bowler trudging wearily up to the crease to deliver a ball at 20 mph with just a hint of turn has virtually disappeared. Today top-flight cricketers have to have more than a passing acquaintance with the gym and to favour something more than just raising pints and downing pies as a form of exercise. Watch someone like Brett Lee or Steve Harmison steaming in to bowl, or a Collingwood or Bell diving round in the field and you are witnessing a genuine display of athletic prowess.
2. Skill. Watch Shane Warne bowl. Nuff said. (although a quick shout here for David Gower's 215 against Australia in 1985)
3. Entertainment. Oh yes. No longer do tests dribble to a draw after endless days of Chris Tavare blocking, blocking and blocking. These days top sides try to knock off 400 runs in a day and bowl the opposition out in a morning. No other sport can keep an audience rapt not merely for 90 minutes or a couple of hours but for up to 5 days. No other sport has so many twists and turns, so many chances to redeem a failure or throw away a triumph: batting collapses, bowling disasters, brilliant catches, dropped dollies, brilliant run-outs, sloppy leg-byes. It's all there. And I defy anybody watching the closing moments at Edgbaston, Old Trafford or Trent Bridge to disagree.
4. A team game. Possibly England's strongest point over the last couple of years - all 11 players are happy to act as a unit, revelling in each other's success and supporting each other in failure. As Leicestershire CCC proved in the 90's, a good team is damn hard to beat.
5. An individual game. Can anything be greater than the loneliness of the long distance batsman? At its heart cricket boils down to one man standing alone against 11 others, all ready to leap on his slightest mistake as a very hard ball is hurled at him at speeds sometimes exceeding 100 mph (ta Shoaib Akhtar), talking of which ...
6. Danger. You might not think it but cricket is a genuinely dangerous sport: that ball is very hard and comes in very, very fast, something I can confirm having gone to a school where we had 2 pads, no box and a county Under-21 fast bowler(3).
7. Mind games. Oh yes, cricket has got more mind games than chess. On winning the toss should you bat or bowl first, should the batsman attack the new bowler or block for a bit, should the field be aggressive, defensive or in-out, how does the fielding side cut off a batsman's favourite shots, should the follow-on be enforced? &c &c &c ad infinitum.
8. The fickle finger of fate. And then of course there are the elements - rain, bad light, cloud cover offering help to the swing bowlers, a pitch with extra bounce for the seamers or offering extra help to the spinners on day 4. There are a million ways in which fate can intervene in a game of cricket, and more often than not it does.
9. Human frailty. Dodgy umpiring decisions, anxiety leading to fumbled catches, fear of a particular batsman/bowler, off the pitch familial worries (Thorpe, Warne et al). Yep, cricket's got frailty covered.
10. International conflict. England vs Oz, India vs Pakistan - if you want to see national passions come to the fore, the cricket pitch is as good a place to look as any. And I haven't even mentioned the bodyline series yet.

And besides all the above, cricket doesn't have David Beckham. I rest my case.


(1) and Wales (Simon Jones) ... not to mention Australia and South Africa courtesy of Messrs (Geraint) Jones, Andrew Strauss and Kevin "More Hair Changes Than My Sister's Girl's World circa 1977" Pietersen.
(2) that is, the game I love to watch. I should record here and now that I am utterly, appallingly awful at almost any sport you care to mention. (3) the first man to be killed playing cricket was Jasper Vinall, hit by a bat while trying to catch the ball in 1624 (thanks cricinfo)