Wanted: more Powerplays, and warlocks as umpires

James Tredwell: the Kent Konniver
© PA Photos



Four of the six Test series played so far in the 2012-13 season have been followed by an ODI showdown between the teams involved, tagged on for the commercial and logistical hell of it, as so many ODI series are nowadays, like a bowl of porridge after a Michelin-starred meal. Bowls of porridge have their virtues. They can be tasty and nutritious. If properly prepared. And served at the right time. Which, most food-scheduling experts would agree, is at breakfast, before ‒ not after ‒ your main meal of the day.

All four Test series produced decisive, almost worryingly dominant victors. West Indies won both Tests in Bangladesh, averaging 64 runs per wicket and registering their third and fourth away wins in the 46 away Tests they have played since 2003 (one of the other two victories was also in Bangladesh, whilst the other, in South Africa in 2007-08, was one of their only two away Test wins against top-eight opposition since 1996-97). England, after a disastrously sluggish Ahmedabad beginning against a misleadingly potent India, soundly beat their decreasingly competent hosts in every facet of the Test game.

Australia clobbered a Sri Lankan team whose seam attack was statistically the third-least effective bunch of visiting pacemen to play a series of three of more Tests in Baggy Greenland in the last 85 years, averaging 59 against an Australian batting line-up that is by no means the third-best to play a home series in the last 85 years. South Africa eviscerated a weakened but nonetheless historically abject New Zealand, in one of the most imbalanced Test series of recent years, a cricketing equivalent of Shark v Baguette in a Who Has The Most Teeth? competition.

In the ODI series that followed, the best result any of the four triumphant Test nations secured was Australia’s slightly fortuitous 2-2 draw with Sri Lanka. West Indies lost 3-2 to Bangladesh. England began their series in India well with the bat, and ended it well with the ball, but were soundly curdled in the three decisive matches in between. The Kiwis bounced back from their record-breaking Test mauling to win the ODI series, and came within one ball of scoring a 3-0 whitewash. Sri Lanka thrashed Australia in Adelaide, humiliated their batting in Brisbane, and were in position to claim a 3-1 lead when rain intervened in the Sydney game, before losing in Hobart to end with a 2-2 series draw, and compensating themselves by claiming the best collective average (24) by a visiting seam attack on an ODI tour of Australia in 17 years. And by then winning the two T20Is.

We thus have the slightly peculiar situation of four teams who should be taking some long, hard baths with themselves over their performance in the Test arena, ending proceedings in triumph.

So what conclusions can we draw from all this? You decide, from the following options:

(a) That one-day cricket would be more exciting and relevant if it was played before Test series, as a rivalry-establishing curtain-raiser before the most important phase of the action begins. Test cricket is the Undisputable Pinnacle Of The Game As Everyone Keeps Saying, Even If That Is Not Always Obvious In The Way The World Game Is Managed, and needs and deserves to be scheduled as such.

(b) That one-day cricket would be less exciting and relevant if it was played before Test series. The underdog has a better chance of victory in the shorter formats, and this is further enhanced if the overdog thinks he has done his job already, and has settled down for its afternoon snooze. Besides, one-day cricket deserves more than to be relegated to a warm-up slot when more people want to see it than the supposed headline act.

(c) That it makes no difference when one-day series are played. It is a different format with different teams. As it T20. So relax. Besides, cricket is only a game. Or, to be more accurate, cricket is only three games. And we should appreciate each for its own qualities.

(d) None of the above. And none of anything else. These were just one set of coincidental results.

Write down your answer on a piece of paper, hide it in a hole in the ground for 50 years, then dig it up, consult with a passer-by over whether or not Test and ODI cricket still exist, and decide whether you were right, wrong, or somewhere in between.