Leather On Willow Again

It's on again. Apparently. A brand new cricket season. Wow. Don't all come back at me with such unbridled joy. Whoa back there. Take it easy.

I speak in sarcasm obviously as it certainly feels like there is a lot of apathy towards cricket at the moment. In Australia anyway. We're on season's eve and even the cricket journalists seem to be pretty ho-hum about it let alone the paying public who've been slowly losing interest over a number of years.

What a contrast. There was a time when I couldn't wait for it to all start and would be eagerly reading this and looking up that for the latest on the season to come. Some of my most favourite memories include a day at the cricket with a bunch of mates cheering on the Aussies against the latest enemy, preferably the English or the Saffers.

I raced to the Gabba after school many a time to catch the last session of a Test when the dog track was still there and remember whole days on the XXXX Hill during swatvac when I should have been studying for uni exams.

I toured the UK in 1999 watching the World Cup and had a day to the remember watching the final in a pub that was literally underneath one of the stands at Lords with hundreds of other Australians.

I took in many a New Years Day hangover on the 'Hill' at the SCG while also creating new hangovers at various one-dayers armed with vodka-filled watermelon and buckets of hot chips.

And I've watched numerous Boxing Day Tests sitting in freezing Melbourne weather and drinking nothing but coffee just to keep warm.

Yes, I think I'm fairly typical of the Australian cricket fan who, due to a number of factors, have slowly turned to viewing the cricket season as 'interesting' rather than as an 'obsession' like bygone days. A real shame.

So where did it all go wrong? I know for mine one of the reasons I stopped going to the cricket was the fun police. My last big session involving multiple days of the same test was the Ashes series in 2006-07. It was billed as being the series of the century and tickets sold out in hours rather than days/weeks. But in the end the actual viewing was very poor with the uproar about only plastic bags and no balls, etc and even the banning of the Barmy Army's trumpeter. The beginning of the end for mine.

The actual Australian team of the last few years may also be to blame. They just aren't as likeable as previously and there's certainly no rogue mavericks or loveable larrikins like a Warnie, Merv, Dougie or Boonie. It's all hair product and bling and model WAGs which most of the viewing public just can't relate to.

The so-called feud between Simon Katich and Michael Clarke over the incident at the SCG certainly points to the generational shift within the team and what the new breed deem important. Think that has also crossed over into the relationship between the Australian team and the Australian public.

But I reckon the biggest thing for me has been the cricket authorities all over the world pimping themselves out to the bastard that is 20-20. Corresponding with the rise of India as the centre of world cricket and its own Premier League, 20-20 has taken the focus away from the real stuff that is and should be Test Cricket.

The entire tour schedule is now set according to the IPL in particular but also any other 20-20 tournament the administers want to make money from. It's a truly sad state of affairs when its becoming the be-all and end-all rather than Test cricket with a lot of players now happy to give up the opportunity to wear the baggy green to make a few bucks in a tournament no-one remembers who won afterwards anyway.

My case in point is the soon-to-commence Test series between Australia and South Africa which has been reduced to a mere 2 tests. This is one of the most contested rivalries in the cricket calendar with both countries, teams and their supporters, not wanting to give an inch and to get one over the other. But what do the administrators do? Make it a farce by reducing the contest to only 2 games rather than the usual 3 and sometimes 5 to allow the IPL to take place unhindered.

And the Australian Cricket Board are wondering why cricket has lost it status as the country's number one sport. I don't know all the ins and outs of the recent Argus review/report but here's hoping the implementation of its recommendations go some way to restoring the faith the public had in the game and the Australian team itself.

Anyway, that's a quick rant on the state of play after realising the season is about to start and then thinking back to how it used to be. How I used to be excited and keen. How I used to already have my tickets sitting snugly in my wallet awaiting the first day. But now its a passing reference in the paper and just a check of the scores on the evening news. Something has gone wrong and I don't think I'm the only one. Geez, I hope I'm not the only one.

Actually, I know I'm not the only one so here's a link to a fine article by John Harms who puts it in better words than mine. It was written at the start of the year but is definitely applicable to this upcoming season as well.

Nonetheless, I'm interested in what the (other) masses have to say on this as well. Has cricket lost its mojo? Can it come back and return itself to status as our national game and national pastime?

EDM.