Multiple formats and a raft of abilities have helped the sport become the second most popular on the planet, behind soccer.
asserted
sport → help → soccer
Test cricket in particular has a lengthy, storied and well documented history.
asserted
cricket → have → history
While contemporary players have tried to reinvent the wheel in the hope of leaving a legacy, the guts of the game have changed little since the 19th century.
asserted
guts → try → century
If you visit the remarkable SCG museum, you can see a Test cricket ball from 1890.
asserted
you → visit → 1890
Though its leather hide is fading back towards its natural brown hue, you could take the ball out of the showcase and throw it to Nathan Lyon out in the middle, and he would grip and drift it as usual.
The complexities of a game played over multiple days in varying environments by humans with unique quirks, eccentricities and individualities throws up more possibilities than quantum physics.
Over 2639 Tests up to and including the third Test between South Africa and Australia in Cape Town, patterns have become imprinted.
uncertain
patterns → fade → Town
Cricket is stained by generalisations gleaned from 150 years of Tests and over a century of play before that, and one of them is that “when you win the toss, you should bat”.
asserted
you → stain → toss
Firstly, the toss of the coin determines the immediate progress of the game upon which may ride the careers of its participants.
uncertain
toss → determine → participants
Millions of dollars in revenue are also at stake if the match doesn’t go the distance.
asserted
match → go → distance
On a grassy pitch, bowling may take preference because it can give your team an advantage – but only if the conditions evolve towards a drying deck and browning grass, hence a less receptive surface for the ball’s seam and less deviation off the deck when it comes your turn to bat.
uncertain
it → take → turn
A damp early pitch that dries to a runway accentuates the advantage of calling correctly – if your bowlers are good enough and their batsmen are not.
In recent times we have endured Test pitches slathered in grass that neither browns nor changes its spots.
asserted
that → dry → spots
The result of a head call over a tail just doesn’t matter.
asserted
result → matter → tail
Many sports have a coin spin to determine who might kick off or in which direction a team might run, or kick.
uncertain
team → have → spin
That decision, too, can have ramifications if the weather is fickle, but not so much to do with the playing surface itself.
asserted
weather → have → surface
I’m yet to hear a football coach blame the toss for losing.
asserted
coach → ’m → losing
Batsmen having “first use” traditionally respond with expansive strokeplay, essentially on the premise that “you have to get the bowlers before the bowlers get you”.
asserted
bowlers → have → you
Travis Head carries that torch, although the state of the pitch doesn’t really change his approach; he’s always trying to get bowlers before they get him.
asserted
they → carry → him
Sometimes that works spectacularly.
asserted
that → work → ?
Often it doesn’t.
asserted
it → do → ?
But a career average in the 40s is a useful number even if he opens the batting only about 20 per cent of the time in Tests.
asserted
he → open → Tests
Perhaps the neoclassical example of a batsman taking the ultra-explosive launch pad is Sam Konstas against Jasprit Bumrah at the MCG on Boxing Day in 2024.
asserted
batsman → take → 2024
His ramping, flicking, swiping 60 off 65 on debut dammed India’s momentum.
asserted
60 → flick → momentum
He was subsequently dropped for his innovation and individualism and, two years later, there is still no resolution to Australia’s opening conundrum.
asserted
He → drop → conundrum
History, through uncovered pitches and horse-drawn compactors, tells us that the bat-first philosophy is more or less sound, because you don’t want to bat last when the pitch is destined to be at its most unpredictable.
asserted
pitch → uncover → unpredictable
Is the game more attractive to fans when off-spinners like Nathan Lyon and Simon Harmer are bowling?
asserted
spinners → bowl → Lyon
We still swoon at what the late, great Shane Warne brought to the game.
asserted
Warne → swoon → game
Cricket needs guile and cunning as much as speed and brute force.
asserted
Cricket → need → speed
Mechanical rollers and computer-controlled watering systems have taken much of the curator’s art out of pitch preparation.
asserted
rollers → control → preparation
Soon enough, AI will be issuing orders for a “brief sprinkle” or a “light roll” to produce the “perfect deck”.
asserted
sprinkle → issue → deck
Drop-in wickets, too, have become problematical as they are mostly bland, and bland pitches lead to bland cricket.
asserted
pitches → drop → cricket
Evenly bouncing, non-deviating pitches might be de rigueur for the formulas of white ball cricket, but Test matches and its patrons demand plot twists.
uncertain
matches → bounce → twists
The fascination is in trying to find it.
asserted
fascination → try → it
Without a true cricket soul, AI hasn’t got a hope.
asserted
AI → get → hope
Skipper Pat Cummins and coach Andrew McDonald pawed over the Newlands pitch before the toss, fondling, caressing, squinting and listening to the living 6mm couch resting on the Bulli beneath (yep, same name as the SCG soil from North Wollongong), searching for moisture.
Apparently, they found a trace, and decided to bowl.
asserted
they → paw → trace
Were they protecting a frail batting group from exposure to the first, fresh, day-one new ball, and giving their own fabled bowlers a head start?
asserted
they → protect → start
There’s nothing wrong with that theory if your judgment of the pitch is spot on.
asserted
judgment → ’ → pitch
Judging pitch behaviour is more art and experience than science.
asserted
Judging → judge → science
Throw in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Cummins and Marco Jansen’s size umpteen boots with javelins for spikes, and you have the perfect recipe for impact craters around a good length as the match wears on.
asserted
match → throw → length
Batsmen had to work hard for runs against quality fast and slow bowling.
asserted
Batsmen → have → bowling
Errors leading to dismissals have outweighed the role the pitch has played.
asserted
pitch → lead → role
South Africa’s batsmen fought bravely and skilfully on day four with the series on the line.
asserted
series → fight → line
…and 7 more, not listed.
The Aporia
