As Richie Benaud and his alter-ego Billy Birmingham have said ad nauseam, it's a funny game, cricket. What other game in the world involves standing round in the blazing sun for 5 days in uncomfortable attire with the possibility that at the end of the match, there won't be a winner? This very fact has been the cause of many a household argument in Australia, as wives simply cannot comprehend how their spouses can stay glued to the television for 5 consecutive days watching a spectacle in which the participants, to the untrained eye, barely seem to move.
The argument usually escalates when the watching of cricket interferes with the moving of heavy objects or other household chores that the lady of the house considers would be a better use of her husband's time. The argument typically ends with the husband reluctantly flicking off the television and shuffling off to resume chores while a shrill voice behind him screams: "How can you watch that boring crap all day?"
I can handle being berated for being a sloth but I do take exception to that last comment. Because to me and millions of other Australians, cricket is patently not boring. While it is true that a lot of test matches turn out to be one-sided, there is nothing quite as gripping as a game that goes deep into the 5th day with the batting side needing to score only a modest total to win but with the pitch wearing fast and starting to keep low and turn sideways. It's in these high pressure situations that legends are made and you learn which teams have the mettle necessary to win the fight. Good examples are the 1992-3 Adelaide test where the West Indies defeated Australia by 1 run despite a gallant rearguard action by the Australian tail and the more recent Ashes test (also in Adelaide) which looked to be headed for a tame draw before a dramatic English collapse handed Australia an unlikely victory.
That said, and despite my enthusiasm for all forms of the game, I regret to say that during parts of last summer, I found myself agreeing with the wives of Australia: the cricket was fairly boring. Still smarting from losing the Ashes, the capable but far from great Australian team wiped the floor with two very poor sides in the West Indies and Pakistan. The Pakistanis in particular were very disappointing. Despite possessing some good young talent, the coaching staff had clearly neglected to teach them even the basics of fielding. I lost count of how many "sitters" went down but the number must have been well into double digits.
As for the Windies, the rise of "Twenty20 Cricket" seems to have polluted the mindset of their team to such an extent that they are now incapable of applying themselves for the full 5 days necessary to win a test match. They would perform convincingly in the odd session here or there but would then squander it in the next with awful shot selection or wayward bowling, which completely released the pressure on the Australians. It's hard to see the South Africans, Indians or even the English performing so poorly, so as a forerunner to next year's Ashes, it was not a very good build up for the Australians.
Off the field, it was the same story - highly tedious. The retirement of Shane Warne has left a huge void in this area. No players were caught trashing schoolkids cameras, there were no texting scandals and no-one was sanctioned for on field sledging or getting plastered in a seedy Kings Cross bar. Also in this era of uber-fitness, David Boon's Melbourne-London benchmark of 44 cans is likely never to be broken. It was if the whole cricketing community had taken a leaf out of Kevin Rudd's book and resolved to bore everyone into submission.
That is, until about 4-5 weeks ago, when cricket once again found itself on the front page. For probably the wrong reasons, granted, but nonetheless at least cricket had become interesting again. First, naked pictures of Michael Clarke's fiance, Lara Bingle, found their way into the public domain, sparking a controversy that eventually ended with Clarke breaking off the relationship. Secondly, John Howard crawled out from under a rock and was nominated by Australia and New Zealand to take over as the ICC president from 2012.
The media circus surrounding "Bingle-gate" was extraordinary. All sorts of people seemed to have something to say on the issue, including politicians, past Australian captains, the head of the AFL and respected cricket writers like Peter Roebuck, who really should have known better than to weigh into such a tawdry debate in the manner in which he did. Reading some of the vitriolic rubbish written about Bingle, you would think she had not only slept with every sportsman in Australia but broke up the Beatles, brought down the Profumo government and generally surpassed the Whore of Babylon as the most notorious scarlet woman in human history. It's easy to forget amongst all the gutter press that the girl is only 22 years old, and who among us could claim not to have made some mistakes with relationships at that age? Gee whiz, Madonna is still doing it and she's way past 50.
I don't know how much of what what written was true, and frankly couldn't care less. The only relevant thing to me arising out of the whole fiasco is how Michael Clarke the cricketer responded. For that, he gets full marks. Fresh from giving Bingle the boot, he flew straight back into a scrum of annoying Kiwi journalists and then proceeded to tear the New Zealand attack apart in the two tests.
It is truly the mark of a great sportsman when you can put aside your personal issues like Clarke did and perform to the best of your ability. Clarke's performance was reminiscent of Warne in the 2005 Ashes when despite going through a divorce, being busted on camera sporting Playboy underwear and a massive inflatable condom and having his more sordid text messages published daily in the local rag, he delivered a series of heroic on-field performances and almost single-handedly retained the Ashes for Australia. As for whether Clarke is better off personally after the whole sordid affair - frankly, that's no-one business but his.
Turning now to the Howard appointment, you have to seriously ask what on Earth the Australian and New Zealand delegates were thinking. I don't dispute that Howard is passionate about cricket; in fact, I would say that his love of the game is matched only by his complete inability to play it. However, I would seriously question his ability to deal appropriately with the ICC nations who have predominantly coloured cricketers - which these days is pretty much everyone except England, Australia and New Zealand.
We have all witnessed first-hand Howard's behaviour while Prime Minister of this country. While too canny a politician to ever promulgate or explicitly adopt racist policies, his conduct over his long tenure as PM would no doubt have raised the eyebrows of even the most ardent Howard apologist. As a great prophet once said, "by their actions you shall know them". Further, as the maxim goes "leopards don't change their spots".
In an era where the game's power base is moving towards the sub-continent and away from England and Australia, what effect will the appointment of someone with Howard's attitudes have on the administration of the game? Is he likely to encourage and promote the massive Twenty20-driven revenue growth coming out of India, which has the potential to underpin the viability of the game worldwide for decades to come? Hardly likely, as that would undermine the position of the game's traditional powers. More probably he will endeavour to frustrate the Indians through measures such as banning overseas players from the IPL and thereby promote the interests of England and Australia. The result will invariably be a divided ICC board, with the likelihood that in-fighting will severely retard the global advancement of the game at a time when it could, instead, be entering a new golden age.
Morally liberated people like Bingle make me wonder while morally repugnant people like Howard make me sad. However, you do have to acknowledge they make life, and cricket, much more interesting.
Take note, Kevin Rudd.
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