Let's keep Test cricket white

Test cricket is lovely because it happens in whites. A game that doesn’t allow competing teams to differentiate themselves with contrasting uniforms is a game with a developed aesthetic, one that values its ‘look’ enough to refuse the short-term temptations of colour. Think of Wimbledon. But designers frustrated by the timeless chic of cricket whites are beginning to nibble away at their margins. Literally.

The South Africans wear whites with green piping, and green collar details. Others teams have begun to follow suit. Already the inside linings of trouser pockets flash deep green or dark blue. I can see this trend evolve into piped whites with discreet, barely visible stripes which would look very nice – on a baseball diamond. But on a cricket pitch, for a Test match, can we have whites please?

The worst offender against white is the Indian team and here the problem isn’t design details but the awfulness of its sponsor’s logo. Sahara might be a sterling company but its logo was made by a graphic designer from hell. It consists of the company’s name spelt out in letters so large they were clearly designed to do duty on a billboard, with a tri-colour wing attached to the last ‘A’ just so we know that the company’s heart beats for India. It makes sense for the Sahara Group to want its name to be visible from a mile away, but shouldn’t the BCCI be trying to protect the ‘look and feel’ of the game that it’s meant to promote? Shouldn’t there be a maxiumum size specified for corporate logos? Doesn’t the BCCI care that with SAHARA meandering across their chests and sleeves, India’s Test cricketers look like bandwallahs on holiday? And things promise to get worse. In the Super League match being played currently between Bengal and Mumbai, the players wear logos not just on both breasts but on both thighs too. And on their sleeves!

I recognize the importance of corporate sponsorship in contemporary sport, but every game has to make a choice about advertising: It can take the Formula 1 route where the contestant is a walking billboard or it can choose Wimbledon’s way, where players’ bodies are meant to represent tennis and where logos are subordinated to a particular, pastoral vision of the game. Given the nature of Test cricket, the choice isn’t a hard one. Someone tell the BCCI.