A Vague Feeling of Concern

My name is Brian. I like cricket.

Although I still like to think of myself as relatively young, I have been watching cricket for forty years. In many ways my life, especially during the English summer months, is dominated by cricket. I have to wash, and dress, and eat, and work for a living, but cricket is always somewhere near to the forefront of my mind. I've been going to Test and county matches regularly since 1975, and to say that I've watched a lot of cricket on television would be a ridiculous understatement. It would be a bit like saying that Sachin Tendulkar could just about hold a bat, or that Don Bradman made the odd run at a decent average.

I've read many cricket books and I've also been known to write about the game.

For all this, though, I have never seen a match in the Indian Premier League.

I've seen bits of it, of course, but never a complete game. In its formative years it was broadcast on Setanta and I didn't have a subscription. Therefore, I never got into the habit of watching it, and, now that I can see it, I find that I don't really want to bother. Besides which, I am always at work when the matches are taking place and I haven't yet managed to find a job in which I am allowed to watch cricket.

So, largely, it goes on without me.

I have heard about it, though. And I'm not sure I like it.

S.A.Rennie's recent piece Gamechangers, put some of the obvious concerns in typically punchy and elegant fashion:

'The death of Test cricket has been predicted before, and fair enough, it is still with us, but one could also say it’s these continually raised concerns that have reminded us of how much in the way of tradition and history we stand to lose. The erosion, though, has now reached a point of insidious acceleration. Pietersen was bought during the transfer window for this year’s IPL by Delhi in a deal reportedly worth US$2.3 million. For becoming the number one Test team, England received a cheque for US$175,000. Add to that the increasing frequency of two-Test series and the cancellation – sorry, “postponement” until 2017 – of the ICC Test Championship, and while it’s not quite barbarians-at-the-gates stuff, Test cricket’s fortifications could definitely do with some strengthening.

I do enjoy the IPL, albeit in moderation – like the coke-snorting yuppie who gatecrashes your party and drinks all your champagne, it does tend to go on a bit. I’m all for embracing change and accept that the game must adapt in this current economic climate. But some things are so valuable, you cannot measure them in money, and you cannot tear down a load-bearing beam in your house because the woodworm have taken a chomp at it and it doesn’t quite fit in with your snazzy new decor. It’s all about balance. Sure, you could probably make a home in the rubble if you needed to, but would you really want to live there?'

I concur with this. As I said earlier, I like to think of myself as being as young and trendy as the average forty-six year-old who remembers Stuart Binny's father bowling England out (which isn't very young or trendy, of course), and I don't have a problem with T20 per se. In fact, when you get home from work on a gloomy June evening and you just want to slump on the sofa and watch some six-hitting, good old English Twenty20 (the original, if not the best) fits the bill very nicely.

It's just that it's the long-form game that I see most of and which I prefer. And, in England, Test matches are still important. Lots of people, some of whom are sober, go to them and they are an indelible part of the nation's sporting fabric. Round my way, County Championship cricket even draws groups of people large enough to be termed crowds. It matters.

Is this still the case in India?

The IPL chimes with contemporary India's perception of itself as a vibrant, thriving, commercially articulate democracy. Increasingly, you have to wonder whether Test cricket, with its recent overtones of decay and repeated humiliation, can ever be made to feel important there again. The IPL is India, modern and highly educated, the world at its feet and at its cricket grounds. Test cricket carries echoes and reminders of a less glorious past. For every cover-driven six (Or 'DLF maximum'. See, I've absorbed the language by osmosis.) by Sachin Tendulkar that hints at the game's (and, by extension, India's) glamorous future there are Praveen Kumar's stumps being shattered by Stuart Broad, which hints at the past, a past where India are 0 for 4 at Headingley or they are bowled out for 42 at Lord's, or it is Sabina Park and half the team is injured as they slide to defeat.

In England the future of the longer game appears assured by a respect for tradition that can be hard to define and explain. In India, it seems (and, writing from distance, I may be wrong), this is a feeling that is not so pervasive or strong. The IPL is modern, it is brash, it is glamorous and it is commercially successful in the free market. For that it is king. Test cricket, in its turn, is left to wither on the vine.

And, increasingly in cricket, where India leads, others follow.

And I'm not sure I like it.

Time's Arrow

Talking of Taunton, it occurred to me over the weekend that it's twenty years ago tomorrow that Graeme Hick made 405 not out there for Worcestershire, a monumental innings which remained the highest first-class score made in England during the twentieth century. In fact twenty years ago today he was just settling in, and he finished the first day unbeaten on 179.

My memories of the day it happened are crystal clear. At the time I was approaching the end of my three years at Warwick University, and, while I'd never, at that time, visited Taunton, I was obsessed with Graeme Hick and thought (didn't everyone?) that he was going to be the greatest batsman of his generation (in the world, never mind England). Having seen his overnight score I was trying to revise for my finals when I heard on the radio that he was ploughing on towards a score the like of which those of us born after the era of Bradman, Ponsford and Hanif Mohammed had never known.

I obviously can't remember exactly how many he had when I heard about it, but it was probably about 370, and I spent the next hour in a state of febrile excitement as I waited to hear whether he'd made it to 400.

At the time, of course, I didn't think I'd ever see anyone else do it, let alone make 500. But then, at that time, few people outside the West indies had heard of Brian Lara.

If you'd told me at the time that he'd still be playing for Worcestershire twenty years later I wouldn't have believed you. But then if you'd told me he'd finish his Test career with just six centuries and an average of 31, I wouldn't have believed that either.

Normal Service

Another day, another English cricket season, another quietly dismantled county bowling attack, another Mark Ramprakash century.

Although I fall into the camp of people who don't happen to think it would be a good idea to recall him to the England team - although I could be open to persuasion - I'm increasingly starting to wonder when, since the retirement of the Don in the late 1940s, has anyone made so many runs so consistently, over such a long period and with such inevitability?

I've got some time off work next week so I might do some digging around in the mass of cricket books that stuff my home and see whether I can come up with an answer.

However, by then, he'll probably have made some more runs and the IPL will have started, so we'll see...