T20 rocked by Graves’ bad timing
Grey old Headingley in mid-May did not feel like the obvious venue to launch a summer of Test cricket — and the eve of the domestic game’s Twenty20 tournament did not feel like the moment for the e-CB chairman to describe it as ‘mediocre’.
But these are peculiar times for the english game in general, and for the Test format in particular.
When england slipped from 49 without loss to 83 for five against the unfancied Sri Lankans, it seemed as if the malaise had spread. everywhere you looked, cricket was getting off on the wrong foot — its players, its administrators, the very sport itself.
english cricket should be dancing a jig at the moment. The Test team’s most recent excursion yielded victory in South Africa. The revamped one-day side have scored more quickly than any other team since last year’s World Cup. And a few weeks ago the Twenty20 mob came within an over of being crowned world champions.
Throw in cricketers with the marketability of Joe root, Ben Stokes and — east of the Pennines, at any rate — Jonny Bairstow, and there are reasons to be cheerful.
yet a first- day Leeds crowd of 9,436, which thinned further as rain arrived at tea, was a reminder of an uncomfortable truth: when the Ashes aren’t in town, or when the Test match is outside London, the english game can look curiously adrift, a sport in search of meaning and — the word du jour — context.
It’s why Andrew Strauss, the e-CB’s director of cricket, has introduced a points system for every international game this summer — a thoughtful attempt to inject interest into bilateral cricket at a time when domestic Twenty20 tournaments are grabbing headlines like never before.
Not all those headlines are welcome.
In an interview with Sky Sports, the e-CB chairman Colin Graves ( right) described the Nat-West T20 Blast as ‘mediocre’, at least when compared with the Indian Premier League and Australia’s Big Bash. If the sentiment was not entirely without merit — not even county cricket’s most one- eyed supporter would claim the english version matches India or Australia for money-spinning razzmatazz — then the timing was unfortunate.
An SMS from one county chief executive used two words to sum up the exasperation lower down the food chain: ‘Gerald ratner’. In 1991 ratner famously sent share prices in his own jewellery chain plummeting when he described one of his products as ‘crap’.
Graves wouldn’t go that far, but counties who have worked hard to sell more advance tickets for this year’s tournament than ever before may wonder if english cricket enjoys shooting itself in the foot.
As Alastair Cook and Alex Hales ground out an opening stand of 49 in an hour and a half, it wasn’t clear what role Test cricket will have in a game changing more quickly than Superman in a phone booth.
In fairness to Graves, it is a situation of which he is acutely aware. He has confirmed his interest in staging a day-night Test in this country, and is determined to streamline the domestic structure, despite the objections of many counties. He cares for the game.
But, for all the progress made over the past 12 months, there remains a fragility about cricket here, about its role in a sporting landscape dominated by football, and about the ability of its oldest and longest format to persuade punters to part with their time and money. As england set about salvaging the innings, an answer of sorts presented itself. Busy and intent, Bairstow hurried to the kind of half-century that could be airlifted into any form of the game. If Test cricket’s challenge is to evolve or wither, Bairstow seemed unfazed. even as the skies filled in over Heading
ley, hope sprang eternal.