While the recent ODI series held in Harare between Zimbabwe,
Australia and South Africa finished with few surprises, South Africa playing
Australia in the final, there was still a lot to be learned from it. Here are my top 5:
5. ODI Cricket isn’t dead
There are many out there tipping that the impending ODI
World Cup to be the last given the increasing popularity of T20 cricket &
the lack of interest in, as well as the lack of availability for, the original
short form of the game.
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| With uniforms like these people will have to watch! |
Support for this opinion has grown in recent years through
poor scheduling of ODI tournaments, in Australia the traditional Summer
tri-series has now been scrapped after years of excess games being played, as
well as the increase in popularity in T20 games.
However, this recent series in Zimbabwe showed that an
interesting series will draw attention.
Indeed the series had everything a cricket fan, and promoter, wants.
There were fireworks (Mitchell Johnson breaking commentarybox windows and sending stumps cartwheeling), upsets (Zimbabwe beating
Australia) and plenty to pique interest in future games (e.g. the emergence of
Mitchel Marsh, Zimbabwes possible resurgence, and the infinite possibilities
for Dale Steyn).
4. The spectacle is in the contest
A striking consistency becomes
obvious when looking over the score cards of all the games: the comparatively
low scores.
While the first Australia v
Zimbabwe match was decidedly one-sided & ended with Australia posting a
score of over 300, the majority of scores were under 250, or less than 5 runs
per over.
Some fans may lament that this
would be boring, but what it actually did was provide a contest between bat and
ball that made every delivery interesting, rather than just a 6-hitting fest
which distorts talent and the point of a contest.
So while T20 does gain in
popularity, this series did show that a game game (or contest) is best provided
where there is competition between the batsman and the bowler, not the batsman
and the boundary.
3. Form is temporary, class is permanent
Faf du Plessis was easily the man
of the series, scoring (seemingly) a bazillion runs and never really looking
like getting out. Even AB © De Villiers
claimed that “Faf” was in the form of his life.
The problem is, what’s the point
of being in the form of your life in a tri-series ahead of the World Cup? Wouldn’t it be better to be in that form
DURING a World Cup?
On the subject of form, Glenn
Maxwell did little to suggest that he is anything more than a T20 slogger. While he was asked to open the bowling and
got wickets on a couple of occasions, he looks like less of a part-timer than
Steve Smith, which is saying something.
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| Sorry, I can't help myself |
You may be able to get wickets in
T20 cricket by having batsmen caught on the midwicket boundary, but it won’t
work reliably against good sides in ODI or Tests.
As for Maxwells batting, his
60-ball 90 was impressive, but his subsequent efforts through the tournament
showed he has a long way to go in terms of mindset and approach before he
becomes a 50-over cricketer.
2. Australia has a limited
concentration span
The modern-day nadir of
Australian cricket was arguably after the “homework gate” saga where the Test
side was comprehensively smashed by the Indian side, leading to the dismissal
of Mickey Arthur as Coach.
The recovery from that point has
been monumental, with Darren Lehmann guiding the Test side to a 5-0 win over
England in the Australian summer. This was capped by a Test victory over South
Africa in South Africa in an excellent series that handed the number one Test
ranking to Australia.
This victory undoubtedly boosted
public support of the team (and the sport), but the investment in the success
of the Test team looks like it has drained resources from the short-form teams.
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| "Think about what now?" |
While Australia has never been
any good at T20 cricket, which no-one seems to mind, the ODI team is clearly
suffering with little insight into what its best team is, or even who the best
players are.
Team selection clearly reflected
this, with Steve Smith (one of the best players of spin in the team) being
omitted on a spinning wicket and several odd berths being given.
I’ve already reflected on Glann
Maxwells seeming lack of ability to concentrate on anything for more than 20
overs, but George Baileys struggles were equally revealing. His recent retirement from the T20 team may
indicate that his mind was elsewhere, we can only hope that his form was on
holidays with it.
The inclusion of Mitchell Starc
and Ben Cutting was equally puzzling, neither seemed to have any penetration or
provide a threat with the ball. In their
defence it was a slow wicket and they did score a lot of runs with the bat, but
they are in the team to take wickets; something they plainly couldn’t do.
Also, the whole team can’t play
spin.
Being an Australian cricket fan, or a cricket fan living in
Australia, means that you get to watch Australia play India at least once per
year in either a Test, ODI or T20 series, if not all three.
The rest of the schedule is made up of games against
(usually) South Africa and England, with a series against Sri Lanka or Pakistan
occasionally squeezed in. While this may
make for more level contests (in theory), watching the same teams play each
other repeatedly does get a bit dull.
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| The Harlem Globe Trotters v The Generals are the obvious exception |
Seeing the Australian team play in Harare allowed fans to
see how cricket is played and watched in Zimbabwe, as well as the differences
to how the game is enjoyed, giving insight into how it could be grown here in
Australia as well as globally.
Seeing the Zimbabwe fans celebrate when their team won as
truly elating. Here were people that
live in a country with ridiculously high inflation and unemployment that had
turned up to watch a bit of cricket and walked away with a win. It reminded you why people play sport in the
first place.
There were also idiosyncrasies involved in the way Zimbabwe
hosts cricket, including:
·
The Man of the Match awards (Mitchell Marsh was
presented a novelty cheque for $250; well less than the cost of one of this
many bats & his IPL contract);
·
Tinashe Panyangara was suspended for sharing a
YouTube video with team-mates (though I suspect he wasn’t in the team to start
with; he was wearing a club team helmet, not a branded one); and
·
The Zimbabweans wore red uniforms, possibly not
the coolest colour in the African sun and one slightly reminiscent of another
