You just knew the tabloids already had the pre-arranged headline, before the season started, just waiting for the oppurtunity to use it. What do you know, today there it was, Vics hit White hot form. Thats right, this is a cricket post, 90% of you can stop reading now ..... thats making a big assumption that 10 people are reading this, and that one of those 10 is either Justin or Tahl.
The bushrangers record breaking comeback win against the once mighty Bulls, is one of few highlights for cricket lovers these days. Excitement and crowd levels have dropped, and cricket is in huge danger of losing its stronghold as the premium summer sport.
Whether its the lack of any team coming close to matching the Aussies (although Englands recent record breaking streak of test wins may make a half interesting Ashes series for a change), Cricket Australia's incompetency in not scheduling a reserve day for the 1-1 tied one day series against our sheep loving neighbours where the final game was washed out, or the weak Pakastani team who just crumbled on the fast WACA pitch, a long way from their comfortable sub-continent batting conditions. Throw in such absurdities such as Bob Simpson picking himself in his best Aussie team ever (yeah right) and you have a sport dying for some spark of excitement.
What can Cricket Australia do? Well the 20 over games they are trialling looks to be an option worth looking at - in a time of 2-minute noodles and on hour dry cleaning, people are getting bored with even the 50 over format that usedto be something to really get excited about. Any purist will disagree with this statement, naturally, but at least it is something that will hopefully attract non-cricket lovers. The selectors need to do there part as well, and go with such players as Michael Clarke, and other youngsters such as Tait, White and Hussey. The likes of McGrath, Warnie and Gilchrist won't be around for ever, and the last thing we want to do is pull another West Indies, and have a decade of superiorority, forgotten by the woeful performances of their unskilled countrymen.
I know next summer, i'm definitely looking forward to 'the other' football finally starting. If only we can do something about the name ...... does anyone like the idea of shouting out, go victory? kinda ranks up there with the Victoria Titans and Football Kingz for my likeing.
