Talking Cricket: Michael Parkinson (21 June 1999)

21 June 1999

Talking Cricket: Michael Parkinson

The Electronic Telegraph

Now that the circus has departed we are left wondering what to do the rest of the summer. A Test series against New Zealand will hardly fill the gap and the players of both teams will be pushed to stir the imagination and excite the senses like Akhtar, Steve Waugh, Klusener, Wasim, Warne, McGrath, Anwar, Kallis and the rest have done.

They set new standards, gave one-day cricket an extra dimension and a future full of exciting possibility. We tend to forget one-day cricket is in its infancy. It is still evolving, still challenging the players to find unexplored levels of fitness and technique.

Steve Waugh said the semi-final against South Africa was the greatest game of cricket he had ever played in. It is not often Mr Waugh utters and when he does we should all take notice. He didn't say it was the greatest one-day game. He said it was the greatest game of cricket.

What has emerged from this World Cup is that at its best, one-day cricket can be compared to any sporting spectacle in the world. Indeed, for sustained tension on players and spectators, it is hard to imagine its equivalent.

Whatever the purists might think, this is the future of the game. If we look ahead another 20 years or less it is not impossible that a Test match may consist of three one-day games played over five days - two days for rest or rain - at one venue.

Certainly Test cricket lasting five days would seem to have an uncertain future if only because the vast majority of spectators treat them like three-day games - if they can be bothered going at all.

The argument that one-day cricket was somehow inferior to the longer kind, that is to say more wham, bang, thank you ma'am than a love affair, is no longer true.

Gone are the pinch-hitters and the boring seam-up trundlers. They only find employment in the worst teams. Matches are won by cricketers who bowl fast, or give the ball a rip. The most successful batsmen are those with sound but adaptable techniques and the most vivid improvisational imagination.

Above all the fielding is thrilling, with players like Bevan, Ponting and Rhodes setting new standards of agility and athleticism.

As played by teams in the southern hemisphere it is a wonderful product. As played in this country it offers a tough challenge to whoever might be appointed coach.

Having had a look at the job to be done, he or she - I am not ruling out Anneka Rice - might well decide to apply for the easier option of running the health service.

Whoever takes over must devise the method whereby our players at least come within cooee of the best teams. They know what must be done. More importantly, so do we. Having seen the best, we are not going to settle for anything less.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph