A day to test the temperament of even the most faithful of cricket fans.
It started so well too. The poster boy for bespectacled cricketers everywhere enhanced his already widely respected reputation with another wonderful display of counter-attacking cricket. Australians are largely unanimous in their belief that Dan Vettori would have saved us some serious selection heartache when it came to picking a spinner since Warnie gave it away. I beg to differ. I'm glad that Vettori plays for New Zealand for had he been born on these shores, this test match would already be out of our hands and a boring victory would be on the cards instead of the prospect of an entertaining test match. The only disappointment was in his cruel denial of a century, even if he did it to himself. His captaincy then turned an intriguing over before lunch into two.
Dave Warner, your day will come. Yes, we've knocked blokes for poor shot selection, forcing the issue on balls that weren't there to be hit. But Dave, I've seen you belt that one to the rope before with pure contempt. Don't be afraid to do it next time.
When Phil Hughes was undone by some good bowling and fielding, our South African heroes Uzzie and Punter went about recovering the situation. They were doing very well until the first delivery after tea. I remember the analogy a junior coach proffered me as to running between the wickets.
"It's a bit like driving a car. You'll make poor decisions at times, but strangely enough if you stick with a bad decision instead of changing your mind halfway through, you'll be right more often than not".
It has served my cricket career well, more often than not. Had Williamson not hit the stumps, we wouldn't even be debating which batsman had erred. As it was, Punter failed to acknowledge the give way sign, Uzzie correctly responded as sending Ponting back would have been suicide, and almost made it despite starting flat footed. It happens. We love dishing out blame and as such, I feel Ponting probably erred a little more. We've all been there though, it's a sickening feeling to have run out or to have been run out by your mate, and Punter went about rectifying the situation the best way possible, by continuing to make runs.
This brought us to incident number one that made my blood pressure rise. Michael Clarke, who was looking terrific, got caught in two minds as to play or leave, and played on to a nothing delivery. Bad luck mate. Except that old mate Rauf Mauf, an umpire I actually have a lot of time for, decided it might have been a no-ball. Better have a look.
I believe the correct term these days is LOLWUT?
I mean honestly, that is farcical. You cannot decide that just because a batsman has been dismissed that you want to look at the replay. Not unless you are going to do that for ALL deliveries that might have been a no-ball. Which umpires clearly do not. If they did, those who hate the advent of technology and how it slows down the game really would have a drum to beat on. So what is the solution?
For me, it is simple. The umpires either call no-balls themselves, or they have that responsibility taken away from them.
Think on it, if the third umpire had a camera to look at the front foot of every bowler (clearly they do), it would be a relatively quick process to say into the central umpires earpiece "Stick your arm out for that one mate".
No confusion, no farcical scenes, and justice for both sides. And whisper it quietly, if umpires didn't have to check the feet of blokes bowling at 150 clicks an hour, maybe, just maybe umpiring standards would improve.
Is that idea so far fetched? I doubt it.
This was the time I had hoped to have come down from off my soapbox, and to enjoy the rest of the cricket. More fool me. There was a time cricket was played on uncovered pitches. A time before full face shield batting helmets. A time before floodlights. They still played with a dark red ball. And yet, a machine was telling the umpires it was too dark to play.
To be fair to the umpires, when they were interviewed by Alistair Nicholson of ABC Grandstand radio who was happy to put the hard questions to them, they were contrite, articulate and even a little embarrassed. "I feel for the spectators who have come to see cricket" said Asad Rauf. "We cannot judge the light by ourselves, the ICC gives us our benchmarks and we don't get to choose based on our perception on what is more dark or less dark" said Aleem Dar (another excellent umpire). "The red ball is harder to see in these conditions than the white ball"; Rauf, talking truth, again. "You could call the conditions dangerous, by what is outlined by the ICC, yes"; Dar, when questioned on the matter.
It isn't their fault. They admitted as much! Shame the ICC, choosing not to play cricket when the alternative option is available. I love test cricket so much but with the disgust of the crowd ringing so palpably on the TV and radio's speakers, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd choose to watch it from my loungechair rather than the ground from now on. The price will be right for the cricket I am not guaranteed to see.
But the ICC don't care. All they care is that their coffers are full whichever way they get it. And they usually get it from 20/20 cricket. And it usually comes from the BCCI and the IPL. So whatever they say is likely to be what goes.
Is this pure cynicism from me, or is test cricket dying a slow death? Go to a match, look at the empty stands, as early as the first day when a nation other than England is not playing.
It really hurts me to type that, but I'm afraid that it's true. I've had not so much a debate, but a conversation with a disinterested sports fan about this very issue. He has been trying to tell me for a while that Cricket is losing its appeal and its lustre. After today I am struggling to come up with a counter argument. Don't kid yourself that the authorities don't know the problems, they merely choose to ignore them. They can see the light, they merely choose not to. That's the most disheartening thing of all.
May the rest of the test match overshadow such negative thoughts. It's certainly set up to give a positive result.
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