DRUBBING PROOF ASHES NOW AN ANACHRONISM
CRICKET, by which one means the long game, not the garish circus that is T20, has come a long way since 1882 when the Ashes concept was born.
The world now is vastly different in terms of population spread, GDP, soft and hard power.
So why is it that the rivalry between England and Australia is still viewed, and marketed, as the ultimate cricketing contest?
Is it time to recognise that this particular sporting institution is simply a reflection of a colonial past where the “mother country” and its outpost of white forelocktugging colonials, as opposed to the millions of people in British India, played the most English of games and manufactured a “rivalry” to suit?
The other issue upon which there might be reflection is why the Ashes, a decidedly boring one-sided affair in this country in which England has won only two of 30 Test matches played here since 2002, is seen as the pinnacle of elite cricket?
And, as Andrew Miller, writing on ESPNCricinfo pointed out this week: “In nine completed Ashes tours since 1986-87, England have won one series and lost eight by thumping margins.”
However, while this recent Ashes series was producing predictable contests in all but one of the matches, South Africa and India and New Zealand and Bangladesh were putting on high-standard and intriguing cricket in respective Test series over January.
South Africa, rebuilding after a phenomenally successful period, beat the powerful Indian team. In New Zealand, Bangladesh trounced New Zealand, the best Test team in the world. Both these contests were of much higher quality and interest than the Ashes Tests.
Speaking of those other cricketing nations, we should ask why Cricket Australia is so shortsighted and selfish when it comes to invitations to play in this country and in touring developing world nations?
Despite it beating New Zealand, the talented Bangladesh team is never given a Test series in Australia over the prime December-January period.
Afghanistan was given one Test in Hobart in November but it was cancelled for political reasons. Now the West Indies no longer has the crowd-pulling power of the 1970s and 1980s, that nation has been discarded by Cricket Australia. And don’t even mention Zimbabwe or Ireland.
As Melinda Farrell, writing for Sporting News on January 5, rightly argued: “Australia deservedly have the reputation as the most risk-averse tourists and can hardly claim to have been good global citizens when the money on offer from any series against India or England is on offer.”
Instead, Cricket Australia would rather make its money in presenting a ritual flogging by colonial upstarts against helpless Englishmen who reflect aptly the rapid decline in importance of their country in every sphere of life. The ongoing popularity of the Ashes is because it is, as the University of Western Sydney’s David Rowe put it, a “postcolonial pantomime”.
Writing for The Conversation in 2013, Rowe observed that “two mainly white colonial rivals can play their perennial game of compulsively redrawing ‘Englishness’ and ‘Australianness’ long after it ceased to matter deeply to either party”.
In other words, this sporting contest reflects a world long gone. It also reflects Cricket Australia and the English cricket authorities’ obsession with income and lucrative TV rights, which overrides any ethical commitment to providing an opportunity for relatively impoverished nations such as Bangladesh, the West Indies and others to play in Australia.
Yet Cricket Australia still peddles the same old myths about the England-Australia cricket rivalry. Cricket Australia head of marketing Nancy Del Monaco told Ad News back on October 25, before the dull ritual carnage of the English in Australia began: “The Ashes is the greatest rivalry in cricket with a long and rich history.” It is only the “greatest rivalry” in cricket because that sort of mythology sells tickets and advertising.
In other words, is it really in the best interests of what is one of the most intellectual and culturally rich sports, for Australia to be so fixated on playing out this 19th-century rivalry when it has an obligation, as a rich and powerful cricketing nation, to help develop and grow the contributions of the minnows of the game?
If you favour a selfish and mean-spirited view of Test cricket, which seems to be the dominant mindset at Cricket Australia, then you will be happy to continue with the status quo. But if you care about equity and a global responsibility to do the heavy lifting because you have an abundance of resources, then you will relegate the England series to once every six or seven years.
The Australian cricket authorities and team ought to move out of their bubble world of Lord’s and the MCG, and think about the good of the game.