Cricket’s Ashes ?
The game’s on fire!
I was at Lord’s yesterday to witness one of the best day’s play for a long time. In warm sunshine, and amongst a near capacity crowd, I was entertained by Stuart Broad and Jonathan Trott’s world record partnership for the 8th wicket of 332 runs (beating the previous record of 313), and by Broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn and Graeme Swann’s excellent bowling in taking 14 Pakistan wickets before the close of play.
The legendary Australian commentator and former Captain, Bill Lawry, loved to describe a player or a team as being ‘‘on fire’’. England were ‘‘on fire’’ yesterday, but by the time I got home late last night, the breaking news revealed that several of Pakistan’s players had been implicated in a ‘spot-fixing’ scandal during the Test.
Potentially, Cricket is on fire and it needs to do more than fan the flames because the integrity of the game has been challenged. The experience that I, and thousands of others at Lord’s, had been lyricising about in the various bars around Lord’s, has been severely compromised by unfolding events.
Instead of the game being ‘‘on fire’’ metaphorically, it could be on fire literally, unless the authorities can deal effectively with the ‘fixers’ once and for all. Otherwise, the joys of watching the glorious uncertainty of the sport will be met with suspicion and cynicism at every turn. If one cannot look at the game through pure eyes, then the experience of watching Cricket is not what it could, or should be, and people will turn their eyes in other directions in favour of other sports and alternative entertainment.
If today’s news contribute to the unthinkable, and it is the ashes of modern Cricket’s credibility, the irony is that on the 29th August 1882, ‘the Ashes’ was born. On this day in 1882, it was the climax of one of the most famous Test matches in history. Set only 85 to win at The Oval, England were 51 for 2 before WG Grace was out. After that, Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth bowled Australia to an amazing win by seven runs, with 7 for 46 and 7 for 44, and a mock obituary of English Cricket was written in ‘The Sporting Times’ the following day.
To wake up this morning, and to read the shocking newspaper headlines, and see the News of the World’s expose on the subject acting as the supposed middle-man between the players and the ‘fixers’ has left me feeling very sad, but not completely surprised. Rumours circulated around the game about some of Pakistan’s cricket matches in Australia last winter which suggested that the under-performance of Pakistan was not just due to the quality of Australia’s cricket. Today’s news will add grist to that particular mill.
Whilst the matter is now in the hands of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, I imagine the official comment from Cricket will be ‘no comment’, but the game is in some strife as a consequence of today’s revelations, and will be in terminal decline if the authorities do not deal with this situation quickly and effectively.
