A day on the embankment brings times of reflection
If Tuesday's capitulation was more expected and far less spectacular, it still offered great satisfaction and the beautiful irony of a New Zealand bowler intimidating West Indian batsmen with short-pitched deliveries.
Is test cricket dying? The issue is at once a New Zealand one and part of an international trend.
A world that increasingly prioritises the quick and the superficial, where folk lack attention spans, suffer historical amnesia and an inability to contextualise experience and have many calls upon time and pocketbook, is one largely indifferent to the siren call of leather upon willow, least wise the version that features white clothing and red ball.
A game that formally dates back to 1877, that potentially sees no winner in the contest after five days, is difficult to reconcile with the pace and sensationalism of the age.
If T20 cricket is a perfect fit for 21st century shallowness, test cricket increasingly seems a quaint anachronism, boring many and perplexing still more.
Such thoughts passed through my head when I tuned in to watch the opening day of the second test against the West Indies.
To say the turnout was sparse would be an exaggeration. Paltry to non-existent would be a more accurate description, especially given the fact that the match began on a Saturday at Seddon Park, Hamilton, widely thought among the most beautiful venues on the planet.
Hamiltonians were unmoved. Less than 2000 bothered. The numbers fell to 1196 on the sabbath, when, admittedly, it rained. On Monday, a work day but not necessarily a school day, only 686 braved the bag search and the big screen ‘‘smokefree’’ public service announcements.
Mindful of the state of play, it was time to put my backside where my mouth was. Think globally, act locally. I would close my place of business, beg some money off the wife and bear witness to another glorious victory. The weather could not be more pleasant and the match situation suggested this would be the final day.
An opposition that lost by an innings in Wellington would likely lack the skill and/or the desire to grind things out for a long-winded draw, still less achieve the most improbable of wins.
Calculated in terms of time and run rate, the target was actually gettable, if unprecedented. A sensible approach would be to conserve wickets and accumulate runs slowly. But this team was not sensible. And the New Zealand attack would have something to say in the matter.
To say things went to script would be to sell the experience short. A day on the embankment, with an old friend visiting especially for the occasion, brought back many a happy memory. Seddon Park might be a young venue in international terms but 26 years is still plenty in one man’s life, long enough to pass from youth into the ravages of middle age.
Together, we recalled that first match back in 91 against Sri Lanka, days of beer tents and rough-house barracking. The spellbinding assaults of Waqar and Wasim in 93. A one-sided victory against India, a surprise win against England and inevitable thrashings by Australia and South Africa.
Test cricket lends itself to this kind of nostalgia. Given the opposition, my mind was given still more to recall the last day of a game in 1999, when my father came over from Rotorua, joining Richard and myself on the grass. In a match where only one West Indian wicket fell on the first day, Chris Cairns wreaked havoc.
Dad’s time in the sun was cut short as a minor miracle was wrought and a once mighty team humbled. A memorable moment of intergenerational bonding, the only justification passive sports spectatorship has ever required.
If Tuesday’s capitulation was more expected and far less spectacular, it still offered great satisfaction and the beautiful irony of a New Zealand bowler intimidating West Indian batsmen with short-pitched deliveries.
At home, in the 1980s, New Zealand held its own as well as any other country against the bullyboy tactics of a side blessed by a succession of genius bowlers whose aggression rivalled that of bodyline. Some dodgy home-town umpiring helped, something the tourists responded to with unheard-of petulance. Shoulder barges and stump kicking were the order of the day.
When New Zealand visited on a return tour our captain’s arm was broken.
Revenge is a petty argument for the continuation of test cricket, distasteful even in light of the Phillip Hughes tragedy, yet when our Wagnerian import caught the unfortunate Mr Ambris on the wrist, necessitating his retirement, it was hard not to think back to Jeremy Coney in 1985.