So, after five days, 1628 runs and 17 wickets, the West Indies-England test match is over. It has raised serious questions about test match cricket in the Caribbean.
Even the purists would struggle to argue that it was worthwhile watching. Even Graham Gooch has spoken out about the state of pitches. Everybody likes watching a good few runs being scored, but when the end result is a virtual “dud” match, where’s the entertainment in that?
Cricket, like many other sports, faces a fight to gain media coverage ahead, or even alongside, football. And games like this are hardly an advert for it.
Thanks to satellite television, I have not watched a test match since 2005. Nearly four years ago, England secured the Ashes after a thrilling series, which had virtually the whole country gripped. There was even talk of cricket overthrowing football as a popular sport. It was naive to think that. It was never going to happen, and most people knew it.
But, cricket missed an opportunity. A big opportunity. Instead, it disappeared from terrestrial television, and those casual watchers that it picked up in 2005 did not see the home tests of the next summer, with Channel 4 losing the rights to SKY.
Cricket should have taken its chance to put itself further in the limelight. It has done that, to an extent, with the advent of Twenty20, which has provided an alternative to sitting through four/five days worth of strategy fuelled test match cricket. But it could really kick on from that, and really become THE summer sport of many. There are thousands of football fans crying out for something to do during the summer months, e.g. the football close season, and Twenty20 cricket would be ideal.
An Indian Premier League style competition, but perhaps without the ridiculous pay packets floating around, perhaps based around city teams, rather than the ageing county system, and people can enjoy the British summer (I know) with a few drinks and a carnival atmosphere.
That’s not to say test cricket is dead. Far from it. With Australia’s dominance at an end, there’s an increased competitiveness between the test playing nations, and it’s providing some good entertainment. But pitches such as that in Barbados are not good for cricket.
English domestic cricket could do with a kick too. Although Twenty20 has improved things, four day matches and the one-dayers struggle to pull in the crowds. I mention the ageing county system above. I used to be a fan of it, but now not so much. I find it difficulty to imagine people being loyal to a county in the modern day and age. Boundaries have changed, and with people moving around the country even more so than previous, they have no real loyalty to the county in which they live. Lancashire for instance, don’t even play in their county. Perhaps a city or franchise based system would work, who knows.
Perhaps if the Ashes goes well for England later this year, cricket can take the opportunity to kick on and open itself up to the masses.
Pic credit: BBC Sport
