Packaging (Test) Entertainment

Loving West Indies vs SA...

    We can be frightful snobs about how we prefer our entertainment to be served. The Test Match ‘blueprint’ has fascinated me for decades, and it’s an actual thing, the blueprint. It exists in an ICC filing cabinet under the section marked: Pitch Ratings.

    It stipulates that an ‘ideal’ pitch should offer ‘some assistance’ to fast bowlers on the first morning before becoming conducive to productive batting on days two and three before offering increased assistance to bowlers on the last two days with spinners prevailing on the final day.

    It’s a script. Test cricket is incomparable to any other sport but, nonetheless, how many other sports prescribe the preferred course of a match? Even one that only lasts 90 minutes rather than five days?

    Rugby: “Ideally, teams should be separated by no more than seven to 10 points with 10 minutes remaining with nothing more than light rain, if any, and a firm playing surface. Teams are reminded that paying spectators expect a close game which is decided as close to the final whistle as possible.” Silly.

    The very best curators in cricket’s history have been unable to control nature, but they may not have been offended in recent years if they were able to quantify the level of excitement and entertainment generated by fast-moving, short Test matches.

    The first of the two-match ‘series’ between the West Indies and South Africa was a dreadful imposition, like asking sprinters to compete on soft beach sand. And yet, despite the loss of almost 150 overs to rain, the final session was still compelling. A positive result was an outside bet, but still possible.

    The Providence Stadium in Guyana is hosting its first Test for 11 years and, by the look of the stands, the local population aren’t aware of where it’s located never mind the choice of whether to attend or not. That may be a reflection of many things, but the quality of the competition and entertainment is not one of them.

    The match may have deviated from the script with 17 wickets on the first day, but it has been compellingly fun to watch and is becoming more gripping by the over as the West Indies inch towards to an unlikely win. Pretty sure they won’t get there, but that’s not the point.

    Ground staff accustomed to shaving the pitch bare for the spinner-laden Guyana Amazon Warriors team in the CPL were persuaded, or decided, to leave some grass on the playing surface for the Test.

    The best batsmen scored runs and, no disrespect intended, if they had been a little better, with partners good enough to hang around, centuries were within reach. The bowlers, fast and spin, excelled on both sides. The action came thick and fast with collapses aplenty and batsmen imbued with a ‘must score before I’m out’ mindset rather than a ‘mustn’t get out’ mode of thinking, which can lead to desperately dull viewing.

    Global interest in the Test series still counted in the millions, despite barely 1000 people in the stands, but they are pop-in, pop-out visitors on TV, radio listeners and internet viewers. The metric for measuring interest in Test cricket is radically out of sync with generating revenue from the format, and therein lies the problem with its future.

    If a single dollar, even 50 cents, could be extracted from everyone who cared about this Test match, and all the others between the ‘small’ nations, there wouldn’t be a fiscal issue about its survival. But if the world’s migration to online and digital can’t carry Test cricket with it, perhaps that’s the end of it – for the nations who can’t put bums on seats.

    Old School, conventional thinking led to the building of the Providence Stadium ahead of the 2007 World Cup. It is on the far outskirts of Georgetown, 20 kilometres from the beloved but unfit for purpose Bourda, and it simply never took off. 20 kilometres involving one, or even two changes of taxi-bus, is more than sufficient disincentive to travel.

    Most sadly, Georgetown will miss out on the meagre tourist revenue it used to enjoy, sporadically. There is not a single South African journalist on this tour, never mind a spectator. The glorious ‘Georgetown Club’, resplendent in all its fading colonial history, is no longer surviving. It would have been my third stay if I’d been there. It is sentimental remembering the faded curtains, worn leather couches, yellowing white gloves of the waiters, the fabulous breakfasts and simple, delicious dinners. It was $30 per night, but that was years ago…

    And the morning runs along the seawall, all 250+ kilometres of it, keeping the ocean from flooding the land which is, mostly, at sea-level. And the street food…ah yes, the food. Hot enough to melt the fillings in your teeth but delicious in equal measure. Only matched in its intensity by the friendliness of the people. Outsiders told us to be wary of crime, but they weren’t South Africans. It would be lovely to return one day, but at least I’ve been twice. Outside of ‘big three’ tours, the ‘small seven’ supporters – and reporters – are mostly digital now.