This was great year for Test cricket – despite tampering
Australia’s misdeeds fail to overshadow a year when bold England showed the way, writes Nick Hoult
Aone-inch piece of yellow sandpaper stuffed down the trousers of an Australian cricketer may well be the iconic image of 2018, but it should not hide the fact that this was a great year for Test cricket. We saw the birth of two Test nations – Ireland and Afghanistan – brilliant series between South Africa and Australia, Pakistan andAustralia, Pakistan and New Zealand, England and India, and now Australia v India is bubbling away nicely.
There have been signs the West Indies have rediscovered how to bowl quickly and in England Joe Root is refashioning his team in a vibrant and exciting way.
Finger spin has had a rebirth, with Nathan Lyon the leading wicket-taker this year. Five of the top 10 bowlers are spinners and when they take wickets it normally equals results.
The statistics suggest it has been the best year to watch Test cricket for 48 years, if you view it through the lens of drawn matches. Of the 45 games so far in 2018 only five have ended with no result and if it stays that way over the next week it will be the lowest number of draws in a calendar year since 1970. Modern Test cricket has become a results game.
There are three matches to go this year, all starting on Boxing Day, and do not expect the pattern to change, weather permitting. New Zealand and Sri Lanka just drew in Wellington but only 12 overs were possible on the last day due to rain. New Zealand are too good and Sri Lanka too inconsistent to expect Christchurch’s Boxing Day Test to end in a draw.
In Pretoria, Centurion is a result pitch – there has been one draw in a decade – and South Africa and Pakistan have outstanding bowling sides combined with fragile batting.
The groundstaff at the MCG dare not produce another turgid pitch like the one that marred the Ashes Test 12 months ago, while Australia and India are desperate to win for different reasons. That Boxing Day Ashes Test 12 months ago was a low point. It ended with both captains having given up on how to take a wicket. It was a drop-in pitch that should have been dropped in the Yarra River.
But it was an important moment, for if a showpiece like that could be ruined by a dreadful surface then the game had to take action. This year pitches have been sportier, giving bowlers a sniff. Perhaps also the International Cricket Council’s threat to suspend grounds from hosting Test cricket if they produce duff surfaces is concentrating minds, although the decision to mark the pitch in Perth last week as “average” after a ding-dong match was wrong.
Test cricket is all the better for the fact all teams are inconsistent. Winning away is as hard as ever, with only 12 Tests won by the visitors, in keeping with the past five years, but perhaps England’s performance in Sri Lanka, and the determination to go down fighting if necessary, will inspire others to approach overseas assignments in a bolder frame of mind.
Twenty20 has changed, not ruined, Test-match batting. When Alastair Cook retired he admitted few will grow up now wanting to copy his steadfast batting. “I’ve seen the way kids came into the Essex team and their attacking game is better than their defensive game. We played Twenty20 as kids but then it was still about building an innings for the first five [overs] not trying to hit it over the keeper’s head third ball. We should not be scared of it. We should embrace it.”
England go to the West Indies next month and you have to hope the home board holds its nerve and produces the quick pitches that helped its fast bowlers unnerve Sri Lanka and Bangladesh this year. Led by Shannon Gabriel, the quicks took 84 of the 96 wickets to fall in those series and if the grounds produce fast pitches, rather than duds to eke out five days to fleece England fans, it could be the bounce West Indies cricket desperately needs.
Root is in Australia playing Big Bash for Sydney Thunder and enjoying winter sunshine. He is also evaluating Australia’s rebuilding at close quarters. A crowd of 68,000 to 72,000 is estimated in Melbourne on Boxing Day – 20,000 fewer than the Ashes Test, but if Australia move 2-1 up having lost the opening Test to India it will go a long way to reconnecting the team to their public. The series is front and back-page news in Australia. Virat Kohli wants to lead India to their first series win in Australia, while hometeam captain Tim Paine knows how important it is to keep winning in the shadow of ball tampering.
By turning up the volume on the stump mic, Australia’s new broadcasters, Channel Seven and Fox, have been gifted good stories. The sledging has been gentler, suitable for home viewing. Paine needling Murali Vijay about Kohli by saying, “Come on, you can’t seriously like him as a bloke”, was a long way from the gutter level abuse of last year’s Ashes. It may even have been an example of Australia’s “elite honesty”. The on-field row between Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, which ended with Ishant telling his team-mate to shove his tactical suggestions where the sun does not shine, gave television viewers an insight into just how mentally demanding it is to play Test cricket.
That series still has plenty left to offer. The year is not over yet.
The best could still be to come.
England performance in Sri Lanka should inspire others to be bolder in approach to overseas assignments