'Fun' is not just for laughs...

Fun is to win.

Fun is not just for laughs…

It is to win.

   After four and a half days it came down to a single run and New Zealand became just the fourth team to win a Test match after being asked to follow-on. Before their dramatic victory such results had only happened once a century. Now it is twice in the 21^st century and it’s only 23-years-old.  

    England beat Australia by 10 runs in 1894 with a pair of left-arm spinners, Bobby Peel and Johnny Briggs, to the fore and again by 18 runs in 1981 when Ian Botham and Bob Willis did their amazing thing at Headingly. In 2001 it was the turn of VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Harbhajan Singh to create history as India again beat Australia by a monstrous 171 runs after amassing 657-7 second time around.

    The final day at the Basin Reserve swung emphatically towards the Black Caps in the first hour as Joe Root ran out his partner, Harry Brook, before he’d faced a ball and England crashed to 80-5 chasing 258. The former captain was so disgusted with himself he refused to raise his bat on reaching 50 and was grimly determined to score runs for both of them and win the game.

    The sixth wicket stand of 121 put the tourists firmly back on track for a seventh consecutive Test win and a first series clean-sweep on foreign soil since 1899 when the irascible Lord Hawke’s team won 2-0 in South Africa. But the contest continued to writhe, Ben Stokes departed to a flamboyant hook shot and Root, to his horror, did likewise five runs short of becoming the 12^th Englishman to score two hundreds in a Test.

    With seven runs required from the last pair Jack Leach top-edged a heart-stopping single and Jimmy Anderson heaved a ferocious pull-shot against Neil Wagner to the deep midwicket boundary. Two required – or a single for just the third tie in a Test match. Wagner was bowling at the body and Anderson was fending it off. The final delivery of the match, as it transpired, brushed his bat and was caught down the legside, superbly, by the excellent Tom Blundell.

    “It was incredible to be a part of a Test match like that,” captain Stokes said afterwards, grinning not politely but spontaneously and genuinely. “Make no mistake, we’d rather win, but everyone’s got their money’s worth from a brilliant game of Test cricket and we’ve made a few memories along the way.”

    There is still significant scepticism among cricket watchers about the stated desire and intention of Stokes and coach Brendan McCullum to ‘have fun’ and bring the ‘joy’ back to Test cricket. The reasons for that scepticism are simple: For the vast majority of the last century Test cricket has been played with, and supported by, an austere reverence which is almost certainly irrelevant today.

    Yes, it has been played harder and has taken a greater toll on the players than any other format, but far too much attention has been placed on the results and ramifications of matches and series. Winning and losing on the sports field defines neither individuals nor nations, but even that misses the most important point about playing with a love for the game and a smile on your face.

    What is often unrecognised, overlooked or forgotten is that players and teams who enjoy what they do are more likely to win. Not just the match days, but the hours of practise and fitness sessions required to peak. Hardcore supporters who extrapolate an element of ‘diminished commitment’ from Stokes for concentrating on having fun are quite wrong. Steve Waugh’s brilliant Australian team may have won many, largely joyless games of cricket but they are the exception which proves the rule.

    South Africa’s new head coach, Shukri Conrad, has robustly tackled the elephants in the Proteas change room since he took charge. He has refused to tiptoe around fitness and has not ignored recent form. Nobody has a ‘right’ to be in the starting XI and, while he is a respecter of reputations, they are but a very small criterion for selection.

    Another cornerstone philosophy of successful teams is 100% backing and support for the players who are selected and an attempt to remove the sort of malingering doubt about a player’s future which contributed towards the indecision and tentativeness that afflicted Aiden Markram last year. Conrad tends to say things as they are and as he sees them, good and bad. Markram is one of the best batters in the country and he scored four 100s in his first international season as an opener. He was robustly reminded of that and responded with another century on the first day against the West Indies at Centurion.

    I may have missed the first Test at Supersport Park but I have watched a good deal of the first two day’s play on television, currently in transit for a night in Sydney. I’m looking for smiles as much as cover drives and jaffas from the bowlers. The miserable example of suspicion and self-preservation set by administrators for several years naturally filtered down to the players. It’s time for fun and enjoyment. Results will come from that. I can’t wait to be at the Wanderers for the second Test.