The quality of pitches comes under the expanded brief of the International Cricket Board (ICB) match director, who works closely with each venue and the groundspeople in the build-up to the Superpower Series. Their responsibility is to the spectator every bit as much as the players. The match director also controls all contentious issues that have been taken out of the hands of the umpires—such as ground, weather and light, boundaries and the use of substitutes, as well as the many day-to-day decisions that are driven by the need for objectivity and common sense. Outside of playing the game, the job of match director has become the most sought-after in cricket and is highly paid. Appointments come directly from the main board of the ICB, which is made up of independent directors, none of whom has a role within their own country’s governing body. As required, this main board has a subdivision that includes each of the four international match directors and one former cricketer from each of the countries represented in that year’s Superpower Series.
The pink ball is an unqualified success. People fondly remember the time in Adelaide, back in 2015—goodness, how long ago that seems—when it was first seen in a Test match and how, rather generously to the manufacturers, the curator left more grass on the pitch to ensure the ball lasted the required duration. Not now. Cricket balls are of excellent quality and have benefited from technology that has ensured a strong, proud and lasting seam.
People still tell jaw-dropping stories of the days when bats were like railway sleepers but limitations on their weight and depth have also contributed to a more even balance between bat and ball. (There was an entertaining moment at the air-meet global sport’s history convention in Chicago recently when the lecturer, Roger Federer, unveiled an air-tight display chamber in which was housed a driver used by Ben Hogan, the tennis racquet used by Lew Hoad when he won the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon in 1956, and a bat used by Dennis Compton. The students in the audience laughed, at first refusing to believe they were the real thing, and even the black- and-white movies shown of each of those great sportsmen in action failed to convince. As most of them insisted, sport has moved on for the better; the old days were all very well, they said, but, you know, please. Federer smiled: 18 grand slams, the last of them at 38 and the kids just didn’t get it.) Anyway, I digress. The point is that it’s not all one-way traffic for batsmen these days.
Almost 50 per cent of Superpower matches are played into the evening. The players grumble about venues such as Durban and Brisbane, where the high levels of humidity lead to awkward sessions for batsmen but as Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher have said, batting in Durban was always damn difficult when the clouds hung around. (Into their mid-sixties now, Kallis and Boucher still play eighteen holes a day at Els Park on the outskirts of Cape Town.)
The only country in which the pink ball is not necessary is England. Experiments to play day–night Test cricket fell foul of the weather and, frankly, England’s vainglorious efforts to play Test matches at night were part of the reason the cricket community decided to rethink the whole damn product. What has worked well is the change to playing hours in the height of summer. Once every four years, when the Superpower Series comes to town, the matches are scheduled to start at 12.30 pm and finish at 7.30 pm. At last, those who rule have recognised that the best part of many an English summer is the early evening.
Thankfully, the DRS is out of the hands of the players. Each of the three umpires, who rotate the roles out in the middle and on the sideline, have personalised touch-screen tablets, which offer everything that the television coverage provides. Immediate replays are on hand to help their decision-making which, incidentally, no longer includes the calling of no balls. The sensors first put into the return crease and popping crease back in 2026 have worked a treat. Umpires and players have a terrific relationship, mainly because so many of the variables have been eliminated.
In the Superpower Final last month, Europe finished the seven-hour day an over short of bowling the required 100 and was fined 17 runs, the amount of the most expensive over of the day. They lost the final to Asia by 16 runs, so we were denied a tie and a shootout for the winners’ medals, which are struck from gold. The captain of Europe, the straight-talking veteran Archie Vaughan—son of the man who led England to the Ashes in 2005—said he had no sympathy with his players. ‘Any side that can’t bowl 100 overs in the day deserves everything they have coming,’ he said to millions of people worldwide at the post-match media frenzy. At this, news reporters tracked down the former Chairman of the Asian Cricket Union, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, for comment. Late middle-age, and the long commitment he made to the military after retiring from cricket, has caught up with the great man and he prefers the quiet life. He was delighted by Asia’s win, even in the circumstances, he said, but really couldn’t talk about over-rates given the amount of time he had been out of the game—almost 25 years!
The 50-over game is now the 30-over game and is played by fifteen countries. There is no limitation on bowlers, any of whom can be substituted for high-quality fielders but may not return to the field once they have left it, unless the reason is injury. Because all 30-over cricket is played under the banner of the World Cup Cricket League, there are bonus points for taking 7 wickets in an innings. In this form of the game only three fielders are allowed outside the ring in the first ten overs, four in the next ten and then five in the final ten. Playing 30 overs per side has become the ultimate cricket, a perfect period during which to display myriad skills and satisfy all audiences, whose members range from those who fell for the game at the turn of the last century to those who now regard ‘air-hop’ as the simplest way to commute every morning. Tickets for the World Cup, which is held every two years, are at a premium given the ease and speed of global travel.
Fans have tired of twenty-over cricket. The desire for something faster, shorter and brighter has forced the hand of administrators, who are searching for the new utopia. As in the football codes, 90 minutes is considered long enough to hold the attention of a new audience. The idea of ten-over cricket is causing a bit of a stir: 30 consecutive balls from one end and then 30 from the other. The 7-wicket bonus point initiative in the 30-over game has helped even out the contest between bat and ball. Inspired by this, the ICB’s elite captains’ committee met by satellite and agreed to trial eleven-a-side ten-over matches in which only seven players can bat. When the sixth wicket falls, the seventh batsman continues with the last man out as his runner.
There was an alternative put forward by the MCC—the old club recently admitted children, by the way—from an idea first given it by Ted Dexter in 1998, which suggested that if the team batting first lost 5 wickets or fewer, the team batting second would only be permitted to send seven batsmen to the crease. If the team batting first lost 6 wickets, the team batting second could only use eight batsmen, and so on. Though the captains liked it in principle, they agreed the practicalities could confuse the crowd, so went for option one, first mooted by Martin Crowe in 2014.
Four bowlers must be used in the new Max10 competition, but each of them can bowl for any number of overs the captain sees fit. Only three fielders are allowed outside the ring for the first three overs and then five for the remainder of the innings. No one, of course, is allowed to enter the double-hit red zone. So far it has gone well, even in America, where the feeling is that baseball has not adapted sufficiently to appease impatient kids. Cricket has caught on in cities with a strong immigrant culture and a desire to make their own choices. The hard-skin fluorescent ball trials have gone well, says the Chairman of the ICB, Misbah-ul-Haq, and the new ball is certain to be used in the exhibition matches scheduled for Hawaii. In general, the visiting Max10 franchises from overseas are a fresh, exciting attraction and there is now a push to take the next Superpower Series to the States.
Generally, the live cricket experience gets a big tick on ASM—advanced social media. Essentially, television is so good that venues are doing all they can to match it. The chip that comes w
ith the entrance pass offers the spectator myriad options for demands such as travel, catch-up video, access to player interviews and insight into performance—such as the speed of the ball, the amount of swing or spin, and the time a fielder has to react to a catch. The new domes provide fantastic interactive facilities that link to the chip, while sellout crowds also enjoy the chance to win holidays and cars in the competitions run on their personal in-seat consoles. The keypads allow them to order food, beverages and merchandise that arrive in seconds—but not alcohol, which is limited to private areas. The retractable roof provides the best of both natural and artificial light and weather. Finally, hats off to the designer of the new hydro-turf pitch, which can now be adjusted to play harder and faster if the much-needed new shorter version of the game demands it.
Seems like Max10 is here to stay.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Some of the above is far-fetched. Some of it is for real. I think Test cricket can be played over four days with a minimum of 100 overs per day. I fear that drawn games will, one day, become an anachronism but we should not forget that many a first-class, four-day match finishes undecided amid great tension. Therefore, the international game is not necessarily writing itself a suicide note by shortening its most precious format.
I think match referees should have greater responsibility and profile, and that they should closely monitor the quality of pitches, in hand with neutral experts who travel the world before Test-match series. Every pitch and venue has its own flavour; the key is to retain that flavour but not exaggerate it for the unfair benefit of the home team.
I believe in a future for the pink ball in any essentially dry climate. Adelaide was far too fantastic not to be repeated there and elsewhere. The pictures perfectly told the story. Test cricket was very special over those three days and the pitch did not need much of a trim for the contest to be perfectly balanced. The players remain wary of something they know very little about. Packer would tell them to get on with it. Time is short; Test cricket needs an energy the players are oddly unwilling to provide.
I have long thought that the ideal short form of the game is 30 overs per side, and that a restriction on bowlers diminishes the spectacle for the crowd. I doubt that T20 cricket will remain unchanged, even in my lifetime. Brilliant as it may be now—exactly what the game has needed—it is the lowest common denominator of the moment. People tend to move on from lowest common denominators.
SUMMER IN ENGLAND, 2016 . . .
In late June, I was at Oak Tree Primary School in Mansfield, outside Nottingham, with Chance to Shine. We opened a new non-turf pitch for a school with good facilities in an area that otherwise finds day-to-day life difficult. The children were terrific value and appeared happy enough to listen to my enthusiasm for the game and to meet James Taylor, the Nottinghamshire and England batsman, who has suffered heart problems so severe that they forced him out of the game. You would never have known it from his bright and positive demeanour. The sun shone, the kids laughed and the winner of the bowl-out on James’s team won a replica Ashes urn. He called it his best day ever. All was well with the world, relatively at least.
In the middle of the summer of 2003 my bat-making pal, Duncan Fearnley, asked me to a fundraising meeting for the Cricket Foundation, the game’s charitable arm in the UK. After listening to the variously worthy ideas that circulated the table—lunches and dinners, golf days and the like to raise small tranches of money to support cricket development—I suggested that there was a bigger and more relevant picture out there: cricket in schools, or the lack of it. I had long been appalled at research that told us 88 per cent of schools in Britain did not play any meaningful form of the game. Equally, I had tired of the elitist tag attached to cricket, a game born of mining communities every bit as much as country houses. My instinct was for the foundation to change direction and focus all its attention on regenerating interest and participation in the game where it mattered most, in schools. To my surprise, the folk around the table agreed that we should investigate the idea further.
A week or so later, at Worcestershire’s county cricket ground, Duncan talked to Mervyn King, who had just become governor of the Bank of England. Mervyn had similar thoughts and agreed that the three of us should meet in London. We got on well, sharing a similar passion for the game and a sadness about its lack of reach. Over the next two months, we met more often and began to hatch a plan. I thought we would need £10 million to make an impact in schools. King said £50 million. Ossie Wheatley, the former Glamorgan cricketer and then chairman of the Cricket Foundation, clearly understood the practical issues we faced at the grassroots of the game and began to think through the logistics of a pilot program. At first seeking autonomy from established institutions, we resolved to fund and organise our own programs. Mervyn brilliantly sold our vision to Charles Clarke, then the Secretary of State for Education, and Ossie had the government’s Sports Lottery people onside. I went to the private sector and persuaded Sir Tim Rice to give us a million quid, god bless him. The government matched every penny and pretty much does so to this day.
We employed Wasim Khan, the former Warwickshire and Sussex batsman, to run the pilots in 72 schools across urban, inner-city and rural environments. Mervyn came up with a simple and effective campaign slogan that lives with us to this day: ‘It is not what kids can do for cricket but what cricket can do for kids.’ Thus, we told people that we were not driven as much by unearthing Test cricketers as by simply giving children an opportunity to experience the game that had meant so much in our lives. Our gospel was that team sports matter and that cricket matters most: our aim was to enrich the lives of girls and boys across every ethnic divide in our communities. We launched Chance to Shine in May 2005. It was to be a memorable summer in many ways.
Wasim came on board full time, first as operations director and then CEO, to deliver our vision. Recently, Luke Swanson came from Pearson (the book and education company) to continue Wasim’s work. The ECB is firmly with us. Eleven years on, we can proudly say that £52 million of funding has allowed three million children at 11,000 schools to play cricket who would not otherwise have done so. More than one and half million of them are girls. Clare Connor, the former England captain and now boss of women’s cricket at the ECB, insists that Chance to Shine has done more than anything to normalise the idea that cricket is for everyone.
I vividly remember the day we launched our Street program, designed to focus on special needs within inner-city communities. We were on a council housing estate on the outskirts of Greater Manchester, and the kids were playing on a large hard-court surface we had built for them. Our coaches were working with the local police, who had taken to umpiring and coaching the kids themselves. I spoke to the sergeant in charge of the area. He said that Chance to Shine had taught the local police force every bit as much about the children as the children had learnt about them. He said people on the estate had begun to trust the police and the more they played cricket together, the more they found that even the most challenging kids became friendly and supportive.
Our programs are inclusive, engaging and played in the spirit of the game. Last year alone, 346,000 children benefited from them. At the end of 2015, the UK government published a new strategy for sport that set the agenda for Sport England, our largest funder. The three themes are: the power of sport to deliver vital social outcomes, including individual and community development; the value of engaging people who are typically less likely to engage in physical activity; and the overwhelming importance of giving young people the opportunity to play sport in general. And these are exactly the things we do.
Here are two examples:
As a child, Soyfur Rahman struggled at school, really struggled. He had travelled from Bangladesh to Bethnal Green in East London and didn’t speak a word of English. Luckily, cricket was there to help him. His school, Hague Primary, was one of the first to receive support and coaching from Chance to Shine. The innovative head teacher even created
a rooftop playground for the children to enjoy cricket at every opportunity. Soyfur was a good bowler and he quickly impressed his new classmates. Respect turned to friendship, and with that came a stronger self-belief. Soyfur’s English improved and his love of cricket grew so much that he joined the local cricket club in Victoria Park. Today, ten years on, Soyfur has become a full-time employee with Middlesex Cricket and is coaching with Chance to Shine back at Hague Primary. Soyfur’s cricketing journey has come full circle.
Eleven-year-old Jordan, from Nottingham, had changed primary schools ten times and was expelled from the last two. Both her parents were in prison and several foster placements had been tried without success. Jordan had frequent episodes of violent and verbally abusive behaviour but then, through a Chance to Shine coaching scheme, she discovered a talent for sport. Jordan was in the school team for a cricket festival where she impressed, and regularly attended after-school cricket sessions at the local cricket club. Her outbursts lessened considerably, her school attendance increased dramatically and she showed a talent in maths, art and other areas of sport.
Cricket breaks down barriers. It creates social skills that bring people together and it helps form friendships that last a lifetime. Chance to Shine really is a dream that came true. Now the dream is to reach a million more, and another million after that. And one day to see a cricketer receive his, or her, first international cap and hear them say, ‘Chance to Shine changed my life.’
My father—able seaman in the Navy, 1947.
Mum and Dad at their wedding, June 1954.
Middlesex vs Southgate CC, 26 August 1951. Dad is second from the left. For a few years in the mid-1960s I would go every weekend to watch him in action and spend hour upon hour batting and bowling on the sidelines myself.
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