19th April
The story so far. Less than a decade ago, the English invent a short form of professional cricket. It’s called 20/20. It lasts roughly two and a half hours. Each side can bat twenty overs (120 balls). No batsman has the time to play himself in. As soon as he gets to the crease, he must try to hit the ball as far as possible, or if he can’t do that, at least score something from each ball bowled at him. The risks of batting are accordingly enhanced. Wickets are bound to fall. In the small gaps between something exciting happening, the crowd is bombarded with blasts of music. Girls dance. The public is thus very entertained for a period of time only slightly longer than the duration of a soccer match. And since in soccer, obscene amounts of money are routinely made, it’s hoped a little of this will rub off onto cricket.
But England already has soccer. The function here is already adequately fulfilled. However, over in India cricket is a national passion. There 20/20 really can become the star sporting event. Using the British/European soccer model, millionaires pump money into the game, seeking to increase their commercial and political profiles. A league of teams featuring international stars is formed. In its second year, the dates clash with the protracted Indian general election. The cricketers’ safety can’t be guaranteed. At a month’s notice the whole circus is transferred to South Africa. Doesn’t really matter where it’s played of course. The TV rights are the most important thing.
And yesterday was one of the first significant matches of this year’s Indian Premier League. For the record the Chennai Superkings beat the Bangalore Bashers (or some equally daft name). Not that many of us will care. The matches have no more meaning than the fantasy cricket games we used to play as kids between Mars and Alpha Centauri featuring Batman’s fast bowling (where was Bowlerman when you needed him?) and Vlad the Impaler’s unusual fielding techniques.
Even 20/20 works when it has a context. Put up a genuinely Australian team against a genuinely English one and you have a game to be watched, even if for some the vital spark of ‘proper’ cricket is missing. No anticipation, you see. No seduction. No foreplay. Just a few minutes of desperate mechanics.
But the financial logic is ineluctable. The big stars (and their agents) will do this thing, whatever ordinary cricket-followers think. And the two biggest stars of English cricket were there last night. Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen. Tarzan and Superman. I heard on the radio Pietersen was out without troubling the scorers. They didn’t say what Flintoff may or may not have done.
You’ll hear more of these two Big Men this summer. And they are big, both in marketing terms and physically. I remember seeing a). Muhummad Ali b). an early seventies All Blacks rugby team in the flesh, and both times my reaction was to be flabbergasted by the physical presence of the men concerned. Pietersen and Flintoff come into that category. On the other hand, the personal behaviour of both has occasionally been lamentable, which somewhat devalues their charisma.
Both have done extraordinary things on the cricket-field. Flintoff’s obvious body-on-the-line whole-hearted commitment to his bowling is something unique, though his actual stats aren’t. In his prime (now past) his uninhibited hitting of a cricket ball was something which made the heart leap. His smile can light up a stadium. His good nature and encouragement of friendly but intense competition are not to be underestimated in an age of sporting cynicism. But on every occasion he runs in to bowl, one asks whether the body will take it this time. Bowling was once his second skill but it’s become his first, and there’s a mismatch between body and activity. *
Pietersen is simply a batsman unlike any other. He can switch himself round in the crease and hit the ball almost as far from the lefthanded position as he can from the right. No one else in the history of the game has ever done this. He will never be beautiful. In fact, the way he closes the face of the bat as he hits though the off-side produces a shovelling motion which looks plain wrong. But the thing is, even if you’d never coach it, it’s a technique which works mighty effectively for him. He scores fast. He’s confident to the point of arrogance. And behind the bluster appears to be a young man who cares enough about his game to work very hard at it. He has yet to convince us that he cares equally about any team’s success. He came from South Africa to play for England. He’s fallen out with county colleagues, and with England team managements. He’s briefly been captain of England, but is so no longer. Whisper it softly, but it’s possible that as with Flintoff, we may now have seen the absolute best of Pietersen, although he will score many more runs for England.
They will play for another fortnight – half the Indian Premier League tournament – and must then return to England to play Test match cricket. Where will their heart be?
* Two days later it was announced that Flintoff had ‘done a knee’ and was heading back to the operating theatre for what seems the umpteenth time.
