I do not know what Cricket will look like in 40 years. But if we still have cricket in 40 years, I can guarantee that the players will be complaining about the schedule, while the spectators bemoan the latest ‘new thing’. The media (whatever that is in 2063) will be full of stories about how the end is nigh. Everyone will agree that the good days are almost over.
I love a seasonal diary or tour diary. The most recent ones in my collection are from 2019 (Test Match Special and Ben Stokes kept diaries in that remarkable year). I do not think as many are published as was once the case – probably because so much is shared on Social Media. But I have recently acquired a number of these diaries, the oldest of which is from 1978 (Bob Willis’ Diary of the Season which I have not yet read). They can be acquired cheaply on Amazon (other options are available) and I find them fascinating. All of them include themes that are familiar in 2023.
Bob Taylor and David Gower independently chronicled the 1978/9 Ashes Series, with the help of the evergreen Pat Murphy. Two more different personalities you could not hope to find, and Gower might have said a couple of things that he perhaps would not say in 2023. Its a wonderful read, and you get a real feel for how the series went. An England team with a brittle batting line-up heavily dependent on Geoff Boycott, Gower and Lord Botham. A bowling line-up dependent on Willis, Botham and Spinners. A series that England won, but I wonder if Graham Yallop would like to claim Stuart Broad’s line about the series being ‘void’. It was all played under the shadow of Kerry Packer and World Series Cricket. Both teams had lost star performers – Taylor himself filling the vacancy created by Allan Knott. Australia probably did suffer more than England, but Gower has always been keen to remind us that Rodney Hogg was no slouch. A major test match series played under the shadow of a controversial new tournament? Ring any bells?
A couple of years later came Graham Gooch’s Diary from 1981. It documents a shambolic tour to the West Indies by England, a tour where an England team was badly let down by politics (think 2003 World Cup) and a key member of the Management Team in Ken Barrington died mid tour, indeed in the middle of a game. That game went on without a break – certainly, that would not happen now. Gooch went from a fearome opening batter who could handle the fearsome foursome to an out of touch batter who was dropped during the 1981 Ashes before he got back into the team for the India tour. Reading it now, it is no surprise at all that Gooch took the money to go to South Africa. Indeed, it is surprising that anyone turned it down. Gooch’s complaint is the structure of the cricket season and, in particular, the lack of opportunity to play first-class cricket between test matches. Often, a Sunday League Game would be the only chance Gooch would get to play between test matches. England players not being able to practice between games? Ring any bells?
Gooch does not exactly criticise the test matches without rest days, though he does suggest that weekend test matches should not be televised, so as to avoid impacting crowds at other fixtures. It seems crazy now that the television schedules would ever not be the first consideration for a player. Mike Gatting goes further in his diary of the 1986/7 triumph. He suggests the Australia schedule was too harsh – certainly, such a long tour would not happen now. Of rest days, he says they are critical and should not be compromised. Rest Days are long gone now, and obviously, it is right that test matches run over weekends when many people do not work, and children are not at school. It is a source of deep, personal frustration that so often no international cricket is played on UK Bank Holidays. Cricketers complaining about busy schedules? Ring any bells?
Constantly the talk is that the proper cricket is going to be lost to the modern slog about. How could the modern world be up to the quality of the past? Well, it is always worth challenging the Rose Tinted spectacles. Try Jonathan Agnew’s diary of the 1988 County Season, a wonderful read but a tale of dreadful county itineraries and, of course, that old chestnut of the 1980s and 1990s – dreadful England selections. Lots of amazing overseas players, but some low quality moments too and an England team that was thrashed. Whilst Agnew must identify with Ben Foakes, who has been inexplicably left out of the England Test Match team. Things are a lot better than they were in 1988, but we can still say it. Dreadful England selections? Ring any bells?
Phil Tufnell’s ‘postcards’ from the 1998 West Indies tour is perhaps not the best written book ever published, but it tells of another awful England tour of The Caribean. This was the year of the ‘Sabina Park Pitch of Death,’ which led to an extra seventh test match replacing the abandoned first test match. England ought to have been able to beat that West Indies team, but despite Angus Fraser’s heroics and what we hoped was the big breakthrough for Mark Ramprakash (sadly not to be), England were not very good and it was one too many tours for Captain Mike Atherton. But England encountered aweful practice facilities and dodgy weather. They never had a chance. A burnt out skipper on a badly planned tour with inadeqaute training facilities? Ring any bells? Perhaps Mike Atherton would also like to adopt Broad’s ‘void tour’ line?
We’re not cars where you can just fill us up with petrol or diesel and then let us go. It does have this effect on you, the amount of playing and travelling we do – it all adds up.
Ben Stokes speaking to Sky Sports’ Nasser Hussain
Is it the end of test match cricket? Many have written off One Day Internationals already. Last summer, Ben Stokes packed in the One Dayers, saying that “We’re not cars where you can just fill us up with petrol or diesel and then let us go.” A few months later, it was Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali complianing about the One Day Series in Australia which came just after the T20 Final. Of course, they found time for the Indian Premier League. Crazy, conflicting schedules. Ring any bells?
It has amazed me how the players of thev 1980s were describing so many issues that are still prevalent today. The biggest parallell, though, is surely World Series Cricket. Yet these events are over 40 years ago. As is only too clear from Agnew’s and Tufnell’s writing, some things were not so good in the past and needed to change. Indeed, when one reads about the state of West Indian Cricket in 1998 (they won but it was a mess), it is no surprise that so many West Indians put the franchies first. They offer the security that the national team failed to offer. Agnew may well have made a similar decision after being repeatedly rejected by England – Gooch and Gatting did.
Is it not the reality that nothing has changed? Test match cricket is simply as precarious now as it was in 1979.
Cricketed 