Cricket has charted a fascinating, if idiosyncratic course, over its first 250 years, and so we might have expected that in this highly organised technical age it would have slipped quietly into the new Millennium without any noticeable change of direction. Mind you, there was the hint of the cricket world wobbling on its axis as we approached 2000 last December when New Zealand made mincemeat of the West Indians in two tests and five one-day internationals.
These were the men who had held world cricket by the throat for so long. The grip still seemed so tight when they dominated the first day of the first test at WestpacTrust Park in Hamilton. New Zealand pried open those strong Caribbean claws the next day, and never lost a winning initiative for the rest of the tests and one-day matches.
We were not to know in those heady early victorious days of January whether New Zealand was too good, or West Indies too bad. Was this the start of the madcap Millennium?
By the time Brian Lara had stepped down from the captaincy, then withdrew from the playing side, West Indies cricket was almost in ruins. Viv Richards was sacked as coach, Clive Lloyd could only repeat his wish not to be manager. Zimbabwe outplayed the limp West Indians for four and a half day of the test at Queen’s Park Oval and then West Indies bowled Zimbabwe out for 63 to win by 35 runs.
There has been more than a hint of this Millennium mischief with that fifth England-South African test at Centurion being decided when England and South Africa both forfeited innings, and England won the most artificial test by two wickets. The interesting feature of the contrived results was that, to follow the present laws of the game which do not provide for innings to be forfeited, the England innings was duly noted in the official scorebook as being declared closed for no run. Therefore, the England score was 0. Now, does this remove that blot on the New Zealand escutcheon, that awful 26 in 1955, being the lowest innings score in test history?
There have been other events equally bizarre. There was a time when New Zealand cricket prospered greatly because it could call on four or five men who were playing county cricket during the off-season. These men in the days of John Wright, Richard Hadlee, Geoff Howarth, Glenn Turner, John Parker and so on gave the New Zealand side a very strong foundation.
It is much harder these days for a New Zealander to pull open the door into county cricket. So the news that Chris Cairns was on several counties’ shopping lists created some interest, for Cairns might well start another flow of New Zealanders to England, especially when the top 12 players are on England contracts, and seldom available for their counties.
Cairns could obviously have been offered a substantial playing fee – if not quite in the television presenter range – to play for a county. Then New Zealand Cricket moved Cairns into a new two-year contract specifically designed not to have him playing county cricket. He is being paid not to play.
On the home front we have had the oddity of the Eden Park pitch used for the Australian test, and some lowering of Eden Park’s status as a test match venue. There will be many wicketkeepers -the inspired first founder of The Willows among them – who still get a nasty twinge at the base of the spine when they think of the bad old days of keeping wicket at Eden Park. The days when scraping up the ball on first or second bounce was often the painful option.
Now Eden Park can find a springy, well-grasses pitch on which even the humblest tweaker could make the ball turn. The keeper standing back has the ball coming at hip height. Standing up, Daniel Vettori can hit the keeper anywhere between hip and Adam’s apple.
This is not to suggest that someone has found a magic pitch formula for Eden Park. The fickle Auckland weather is the master there. Last year wet weather lead to a viral attack which removed the grass and left a bare strip, not likely to keep a test going for three days. After a heavy dose of pva glue the pitch rolled out like a strip of motorway, and a doughty tail-ender like Geoff Allott could hold his fort, without firing a shot, for over 100 minutes.
It should be noted that this glue in the middle of Eden Park had nothing to do with the steady decline of the Blues rugby team as the Crusaders won their second title. But Super 12 rugby is on the march in late February, the future of Christchurch and Auckland and Dunedin as cricket test venues is increasingly at risk. There is talk of having a moveable pitch and using Jade Stadium only for one-day cricket internationals, with a new venue planned for first class and test cricket.
Eden Park is now approaching that difficult and expensive proposition, too. The big new north stand now makes the cricket field appear even smaller than it is, and hose-watering or rain tends to leave soft strips along each side of the park.
All this mischief and misadventure, and the millennium is only four months old. It rather makes one wish for a quiet place to study this contemplative game and its peculiar charm.
Anyone for the Willows?