Jim Maxwell did an Ozzy Osbourne on Monday
and bit the head off poor Tony Harrison, Chair of Cricket Tasmania, for not getting more people to Bellerive. Sometimes you can sort of
hear Jim Maxwell steam up and froth a bit, and it’s often about ground-attendance
related things (killjoy security staff is another red rag). Jim, even if I
completely agreed with you, it’s not okay to froth at people, especially a
guest, and remember, as Richie says, that you are also in my loungeroom.
But in any case, I’m a bit tired of this
conversation.
In this particular case:
1. Tony was right. As he kept saying, his
number-one problem was scheduling. This is a time of year when you tell good friends that you don’t know when you’ll
see them next because there’s so much stuff
on and stuff to do in the lead-up to
Christmas. Yes, I could enrol in a time-management course. You ask too much. I
do however think that Cricket Tasmania should have wheeled Ricky out on a non-working
day and I hope they promoted it properly.
2. Kerry, watching all five days of cricket
at the ground is a “tradition” in England because they desperately need the
vitamin D.
More generally:
1. Attendance at the ground is no gauge of
interest in Test cricket. Test cricket is broadcast on television. Plenty of
people must be interested in watching it there or it could not be sold for high
prices to commercial television.
2. If people anywhere prefer to watch it at
home it is not because they’re soft anti-social cocooners. You get a lot more
insight into the game and the theatre of what’s happening in the middle from television
coverage. It offers more to both the aficionado and the novice. Being at the
ground is a different kind of theatre, about pilgrimage and rituals and sacred
ground and being part of a mass of humanity. It has a lot of ‘aura’, as Benjamin would
say, but most of that is not about the actual game, it’s about wearing
watermelons on your head with your friends, literally and figuratively speaking.
When all that aura converges on a big game moment you have an unforgettable
experience that’s all about the game, but those moments are only what they are
because most days and most games are not like that.
3. Cricket at home is its own ritual. An early
cricket memory is my family visiting an uncle and aunt in Mornington in the
70s, and us all sitting together quietly in a darkened room with the hot sun
outside and a bright black and white TV set in the middle. We didn’t go there
to watch the cricket, it just happened. I have no memory of what was happening
on the screen and wouldn’t have understood it at the time anyway, but I
remember well the quiet and concentration and sharing something with people we
only saw once a year. I remember the aura, the “field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object”.
“Cricket”
also means a backdrop to summer time and down time, the murmur of the radio or
television through the house as you wander about your business, dipping in and
out of it, checking up on it from time to time if you’re out and about. It
surrounds you like the weather, it’s a mood that fades in and out, it’s a
constant but undemanding companion. That’s Test cricket, that’s part of its
special beauty, mechanical reproduction doesn't dim that. Even being at the ground can be about
the charm of dropping in and out: you come across a suburban or country game and pull over for
a few overs. I always find myself a bit affronted by the requirements of
punctuality and relentless attention in other sports.
4.
Ok, I am a soft anti-social cocooner. I want a couch
and a good beer and the chance to have a nap, cool quiet and time to think. As Lucinda Williams ponders, is it too much to ask? Am I going overboard with all that stuff? Commentators
don’t have to ponder, don't have to choose, they can enjoy the comforts of the home and the theatre
of the ground at the same time. Now, I’m not saying
that commentators, who have a guaranteed seat behind the wicket, good
television and internet access, shelter from the elements (I include other
people in that category), and private catering (with bonus gifts of
strawberries and lobster), have lost touch with what going to a Test Match
means to other people, namely losing all of that, but… oh, wait, I am. People
in corporate boxes shouldn’t throw stones.
5. Three or five days is an enormous
commitment, no other game asks you to take time off work. For this reason, most
cricket is and has always been played in a limited format, counted in overs or
wickets or runs – a weekend, a day or afternoon, an evening. Test cricket might
be the “high” form of the game, and a wonderful thing it is, but it’s not the original or vernacular form,
and arguably not its lifeblood. Historically, Test cricket is the spin-off from
the limited forms of the game, not the other way around, stop with the moaning about the 'decline' of cricket into T20.
But thinking about conditions and policies at
the ground and what I’d do or not.
1. Gimme shelter. As many sheltered areas as possible. We all wear anti breast cancer scarves on McGrath Day while courting skin cancer. I
realise there are light and line of vision problems to overcome, but we can put people on the moon. Somewhere for unsheltered people to go when it rains, see comment
on passes out below.
2. The security is fine, Jim. Baiting and
barracking the security staff has become part of the fun at the ground and you
only need one arsehole experience to be grateful they’re there.
3. Price and ticketing. You’ll have the
day-off-work cost even if ground entry is free. But yes, I had to spend $130 to
get a seat that would be sheltered from the sun all day on day 2 of the New
Year’s test at the SCG and that’s a lot of money. It’s a lot less if you have a
higher tolerance for physical discomfort, but I’ve done my time on the
concourse.
There have to be passes out. You can’t go
in and out at the SCG, though I think you can at the MCG. Cheaper test passes
and more unreserved seating sections to allow for more floating spectator
intake.
4. Drink. I don’t drink the light beer at
the cricket (all that’s available at the SCG), but observation suggests that it
just means guys buy two drinks at a time instead of one, which doubles the
drink queues because the four-drink limit means one person can now only buy for
two, and creates enormous toilet queues.
5. Food. I actually don’t know about the
food. I started rhapsodising about the possibility of Bourke Street Bakery pies,
food trucks and buying picnic packs with your ticket, then I heard how it
sounded and imagined what that would look like. ‘Healthy’ options in these
settings are generally miserable and even more overpriced than the junk
options. A recent Sumo Salad experience left me poorer, hungrier and angrier
than any Chiko Roll ever has. In the end, it might just be that bad food you
wait too long for and pay too much for is part of the ritual of a day at the
game, and the only way to get around that is to BYO. However: please provide
vinegar for the chips and you might want to ask an American to explain hotdogs.
This is a bog-standard, non-foodie Chicago hotdog:
I want what they're having.
And
that’s all. Because I seem to have taken a morning off work to write about the
cricket.