Sad reality of backyard cricket under siege

Who would have thought, in a sport dominated by cutting-edge computer analysis, cricket’s greatest modern weapon could be perfected by a boy trying not to wake up his mum?

The epic yorkers bowled by India’s destructive fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah – including the one which produced this week’s memorable photo of English batter Ollie Pope’s cartwheeling stumps – were finetuned in the hallway of a humble Ahmedabad family home many years ago. A young Bumrah realised he could practise his fast bowling indoors and the quietest possible sound he could make was to ensure there was no double bounce on the wall and floor.

Bumrah needed to hit the corner where the wall and the floor met so there was only one sound and a soft one at that. He did it thousands of times in practice, perfecting his laserlike yorker, the most feared delivery in modern cricket which he later refined in backyard and street cricket.

NSW premier Chris Minns was under attack this week for a dualoccupancy Sydney housing plan which his rivals claim would destroy backyard cricket.

The truth is – sad to admit it – much of the damage has been done.

Don’t believe me? Go out this week and try to find a game of backyard cricket. You’ll see more swipes of phones than over cow corner.

Smaller blocks and the distracting force of phones have cut a swathe through backyard numbers over the past decade. It’s a shame because when you trace back the careers of most Australian greats they have a feature of their game shaped by what happened in their backyard.

When Doug Walters, a brilliant player of spin, advanced down the wicket to the first ball he faced in Test cricket as a 19-year-old a nation held its breath in disbelief.

But he had grown up on an 8000acre farm with ant bed pitch and knew how to play spin as the ball darted at freakish angles off the deck.

“The wicket on our farm really spun a lot and that helped me all the way through,’’ Walters said.

Steve and Mark Waugh grew up in a backyard sloping down towards the leg-side and therein lies the reason why both were dynamite off their pads.

While under siege, backyard and hallway cricket have a champion in Marnus Labuschagne who still relishes a contest with his mates on souped decks where a Bunnings mat has been spiced up to deliver pure treachery to batters. The experience could serve him well on next month’s tour of New Zealand where wickets as green as dishwashing liquid are expected to be waiting.