Star Spangled Banner on every Lawn

Reasons to follow the New Cricket Age

    World Cups used to be the pinnacle of every four-year cycle for the vast majority of the world’s professional cricketers. England and Australia’s players were the exception but with white-ball money attracting more and more specialists, that too is changing. The Ashes remain the ‘pinnacle’ for now, but only a small minority have realistic aspirations.

    Now that there is one every year, the gloss has undeniably gone, never to return. Soccer and Rugby had their temptations in recent years, but they knew the special value of scarcity and ‘less is more.’ Soccer is not a fair comparison, obviously, because of the Continental Championships but Rugby’s World Cup just gets bigger and bigger because it’s played every four years, not in spite of it.

    This T20 World Cup should be seen for what it is, not denigrated. At least until the last week when semi-final places are at stake. Then we can start to take it seriously as an international contest, briefly. For now, it’s a celebration of the fact that more and more countries are playing the game. Australia and England have already won T20 World Cups in the last three years and now we’ve got another one.

    South Africa’s captain, Aiden Markram, was one of seven players who only joined up with the advance party on Wednesday, five days before the first game against Sri Lanka in New York.  

    “Doing things how they used to be done, in terms of doing a proper build-up as a squad, might get more challenging moving forward," Markram said, inadvertently confirming that World Cups are no longer ‘proper’. “We want to be together as much as we can before any series or any World Cup, but you go with what you get given, time-wise and preparation-wise. We are getting more used to doing things like that.”

    The ‘story’ is cricket in New York (and Dallas). Just as future T20 World Cups might be in Singapore, Japan or Kenya and Uganda. They are about playing in different places, seeing fresh sights and experiencing new places. Uganda qualifying ahead of Zimbabwe for this tournament is another cracking story.

    Hopefully I won’t be alone amongst a certain generation of cricket lovers in choosing not to stay at home mourning the slow death of Test cricket. It is dying and there are no signs of a revival. As the PCA’s outgoing CEO, Rob Lynch, said a few days ago, the Ashes could soon become a biennial standalone event like the Ryder Cup.

    So here I am, on Long Island. I’m interested in watching and reporting on the T20, but that’s not my reason for being here. It’s more to grasp at something meaningful which the new era of international cricket has to offer. Bilateral cricket was as awful as it was brilliant, if truth be told. It is now on the point of extinction because national administrators refused to compromise their short-term national interests in pursuit ‘context’.

    When the World Test Championship was finally instituted, after the last false start as far back as 2013, it was too late. South Africa’s disdain for it and the sending of a ‘D’ team for two Tests in New Zealand will forever be recorded in history as one of the last and deadliest nails.

Anyway! I’ve only been in the US for six hours, I have no idea where the stadium is – or where I am. Or where New York, Manhattan, Central Park or… anything is. KLM have a policy by which they spread their passengers out over vacant seats after take-off, whether or not you’ve paid R1000 extra to pick your carefully selected spot. So, I was partnered with a lady evidently far too large for her seat in the unpaid section 20 minutes into the first flight. Same again for the second. 21-hours later, via Amsterdam, I made it.

    East Meadow is everything you would expect of American 1950s suburbia. Picket fences, small children tricycling, young Moms walking dogs and a star-spangled banner planted in most front gardens. As I said, I’ve only been here for a few hours but thought it only right to share my first impressions, especially for those who have contributed to me being able to come.