A New Era or One Man's Ego?

Boxing Day 1976 is one of those days/dates that I can remember only a couple of things about and yet I can remember them with such clarity. There was the usual big family get together:- both sets of my Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, my parents and my brother. Although I didn't realise it at the time, and why should I, it was the last time that all four of my grandparents would be in the same room together as my Mum's Dad died on the 7th January 1977.

Anyway the other reason why it has remained in my memory is because of a discussion that took place after the six o'clock news (or Christmas equivalent). During the news the story about Kerry Packer's plans for World Series Cricket were unveiled and the reporter made the comment "from this day forward cricket will never be the same again." Both my Grandfathers dismissed this as journalistic hyperbole, the idea that one man taking on the cricketing 'establishment' could change a game that had been mainly unchanged for as long as anybody could remember seemed daft. I wasn't convinced they were right, not just the argument of youth but the conviction that dangling a carrot twice the size of the normal carrots on offer would actually change a man's performance and attitude. The actions of Kerry Packer did, in my opinion, change the face of cricket, it opened the doors to sponsorship, the bigger television contracts, to the awarding of those television contracts to the biggest paymaster rather than the station with the biggest viewing audience and the snowball that Packer began to roll grew into One Day World Cup's, 20/20 World Cup's and almost inevitably to the 20/20 competition currently taking place in the West Indies that has the biggest carrot of all time dangling in the wind.

Cricket fans can recall I'm sure Steve Waugh's words to Herschel Gibbs back in 2003 when the Saffer put down a fairly easy chance to dismiss the Aussie captain in the World Cup Semi Final, "Hersch, you've just dropped the World Cup there mate." This Saturday it will be possible, and to be quite honest given the height of the lights at the ground more probable than possible, that somebody will drop the $20 million catch. The past three nights have seen nearly twenty catches put down, the cause of at least a dozen of these 'spilled' chances is because the lights in the ground have to be place lower than normal because the cricket ground is close to the local airport. The tension on the players faces last night during the one run victory over Trinidad and Tobago was palpable.

Of course SKY have been ramping up the publicity as they do with every sport they cover from darts to the NFL, when you watch a sporting event on the satellite channel you aren't watching two teams compete, you are watching two groups of testosterone fuelled modern day gladiators going to war. Sport is no longer sport, it is a slo-mo, digitally enhanced, high definition displayed, battle of cultures - and that's not just confined to Newcastle playing Liverpool.

Very often in sport, whether professional or not, you can console yourself with the thought that you will get another chance. Obviously there are exceptions: Olympic finals, Cup Finals, the Superbowl, the final holes of the Open as examples, but there are few occasions where one mistake has ever cost an individual so much money. I will be watching of course but as the final over gets closer I can just imagine I will be moving closer and closer to the edge of my seat and watching the television through my fingers.

But will happen after this tournament? We have already seen India turning its back on test cricket whilst embracing almost any form of the one day game, there were empty seats at the test matches in England last summer and the future of 20/20 in England seems to be that of the new kid in town - everybody wants to get involved to the possible detriment of the existing product on offer.

There is no comparison in other sports, 20/20 cricket isn't to cricket what five-a-side is to football it's a whole new deal, the clothing, the music, the nicknames. the razzmatazz, it's a new game for a new audience. There have been cries of 'betrayal' in certain sections of the press regarding the future imposition of 20/20 on the cricket calendar but if it replaces one of the existing one day competitions exactly what is it betraying? Did the Globetrotters betray basketball? Did Pele, Beckenbauer and George Best - to name three, betray football when they joined the nascent NSL? In both cases the answer is no because they weren't going into a game where the rules were different, the possibilities not endless and the rewards so huge. There is no doubt that 20/20 lacks the finesse of the longer game but that is inevitable in the same way that a Big Mac lacks the appeal of a sirloin steak, they may both owe their antecedence to the same origin but the end 'product' is vastly different.

I'm quite sure that somewhere a group of people have been sat discussing the future of cricket and saying of the 20/20, 'of course cricket will never be the same again.' Just as was the case back in 1976 they will be right and wrong, the basics of the game will still be a bowler v a bastman twenty two yards apart - but whilst the margin of error will remain constant, the reward for success and failure will grow wider than ever.