But, heh, look over there, fireworks!
It wasn’t just that Sunday night’s BBL match at GMHBA stadium had to be abandoned in farcical circumstances with fewer than seven overs bowled. It was that the powers-that-be proceeded with the post-match pyrotechnics anyway.
What were they thinking? Was it to distract? Was it to celebrate? Was it that in their minds, one form of fireworks is as good as another? Bat, ball or brocade, as long as it lights up and goes bang, the people will go home satisfied?
Trite as these questions might sound, they converge on a central and damning point. Whether or not the damage to the pitch that caused this most embarrassing of outcomes could have been helped, the decision to proceed as if nothing had happened could. Make that proceed although nothing had happened.
It suggests that, after all these decades, some cricket authorities are still more concerned with the show than the substance. And it inspires no confidence that it won’t happen again, not while promoters are watching the barrage instead of the ball. There was a minor upside: irate fans threw their bucket hats on the field, so ridding the world of some bucket hats.
All in all, it was a damp squib of a weekend in Australian cricket. On Saturday, the last day of the PM’s XI match against Pakistan in Canberra had to be scrapped after wind blew away the covers overnight. That night in Adelaide, rain washed away a BBL match without a ball bowled. Then on Sunday came the fizzler in Geelong.
Renegades players look at the pitch after play was called off on Sunday night.Credit: Getty Images
Of prospectively 170 overs of cricket, 6.5 were played. Yes, this was three different cities and three different sets of circumstances. Nonetheless, in toto, it begins to look suspiciously like carelessness. A wash-out is an occupational hazard in cricket, but a wipe-out should not be.
The precise cause of the Geelong debacle is still to emerge, but the whole enterprise can be filed under misguided. The fixture was played at a stadium with no roof and a pitch dropped in less than a month ago, instead of one with a roof and a pitch typically dropped in in September. What could go wrong? We’ll bring you the answer when the fireworks stop.
While you’re waiting, here’s a thought: if only one government or another would invest some money into GMHBA stadium …
Geelong’s own watergate – I had to go there – was untimely in two other ways.
Pakistan captain Shan Masood scored a double century against the PM’s XI.Credit: Getty
One is that this was supposed to be the summer of the BBL’s revival. Once the golden bauble of Australian cricket, dwindling crowds and ratings and the chagrin of broadcasters had prompted it to be recast this season. Fewer matches and more stars in friendlier timeslots would rejuvenate the competition.
But one of the biggest stars, Glenn Maxwell, is injured and some of the others have been prevented from playing in case four overs at a time overtax them. Quinton de Kock flew in to debut for the Renegades on Sunday night, but as they do not play again until December 21, he will return to South Africa. His is a case of now you barely see him, now you don’t. He’ll be back before Christmas.
Meantime, a total of 6.5 overs of play in a weekend is just a bit more scarcity than is strictly necessary to amp up demand. To obviate discontent, you need at least some content.
Moreover, there is already an anticlimactic mood about this season. At the end of a bountiful year, Australian cricket owns nearly all the prizes it covets and this should have been a summer of celebration.
Yet, Test visitors Pakistan and the West Indies are inspiring so little enthusiasm that in some quarters the talk has already turned to how this season’s Tests might be used to freshen up the team ahead of next summer’s visit by India. It’s a low key-fare whose best offer is to come back next week.
This is not exclusively the fault of local administrators, rather reflecting the atrophying of competition and interest in Test cricket outside the big three. Pakistan may surprise – it does sometimes – but the trend is unarguable. The least Australia needed was for the all-new all-singing all-dancing BBL to fill the emotional gap. Then it misfired.
