Of necessary evils

Don’t always believe what it says on the tin. Halfway through James Anderson’s double-wicket maiden at Lord’s today, I was busy reconstituting my iPod when I noticed that those clever clogs at iTunes categorise the musical genre occupied by Man, my favourite Welsh band, as “Latin”. Which is a bit like classifying The Beatles as hip-hop. Or the best ODIs as runfests, as the ICC would like us to believe.

Seldom has it been such a delight to concoct a sentence containing the words “double”, “wicket” and “maiden”. The sight of an absorbing if decidedly unelectrifying match revolving around the efforts of Anderson, Fidel Edwards and Stuart Broad, three young quicks no less, was a blessed one for jaded palates. After a fortnight of non-stop Twenty20 (a form wherein Dmitri Mascarenhas’s career haul of four maidens in more than four seasons apparently leads all-comers), it was something of a relief to get back to the comparative sobriety and even-handedness of the 50-over version, albeit only something. After all, the outcome was set in stone less than halfway through the West Indies’ innings.

To Sky’s estimable David Lloyd, the commentator who to these ears best treads that fine line straddling authority, fairness, irreverence and levity, England’s innings was “tedious”. This may have been the understandable response of a sensibility bruised by successive evenings of breathless audience-rousing (“Please take it seriously, just not too seriously”), but it might also testify to a deeper truth. Given that man can no more subsist on a strict Twenty20 diet than on a lobster-and-champagne regime, do we really need TWO slower versions when the original remains much the most satisfying. Put it another way: was the planet really that much worse off when technical hitches halted ball-by-ball broadcasts of this afternoon’s “events” in Belfast?

Test matches have more than enough scenes and acts for close finishes not to be a prerequisite. A prolonged scoreless tussle between bowler and batsman, each preying on the other’s reserves of skill, guile and patience, waiting to see who cracks first, can decide a series, let alone a game. Limited by overs and options, the junior partner only breathes when both runners are in contention over the final furlongs.

Yet including today’s Anglo-Irish doubleheader, in the 436 ODIs between individual nations since June 1, 2004 where the contest has not been scotched as an edifying spectacle by the weather, a paltry 39 could be portrayed as having gone to the wire – three ties, 20 one- or two-wicket margins, and 16 of fewer than 10 runs. In other words, roughly 9% of the product can be said to have been dramatic. Which is pretty poor going even for something so often characterised as theatre. Especially since this has been a period rife with regulatory jiggery-pokery.

By contrast, in 15 bonafide Twenty20 internationals (one was heavily rain-reduced), we have already had a brace of two-run margins and a tie. Of the remainder, moreover, two were still in the balance in the final over. Which gives us a drama ratio of 33%. Which is only to be expected, given that brevity enhances the prospects of close-run affairs, and is still not good enough, but at least it’s over quickly and fairly painlessly.

One of the most endearing aspects of sport is that it is the one branch of the entertainment industry where plots cannot (barring the strenuous efforts of Hansie Cronje et al) be scripted, where flaws and/or unsatisfactory outcomes cannot be remixed or edited. The last business to attempt to flog its wares at three speeds was music. Tempting as it is, however, it would be inaccurate to liken our three formats to the three speeds at which we once played records (pre-CD thingy beloved by fiftysomethings).

Sure, Test matches can be linked to albums - 33-and-a-third revolutions per minute, widescreen and serious; a qualified snob might just as easily bracket 50-over games with singles - 45rpm, faster, dinkier and eminently disposable. The metaphor loses credibility when you remember that the fastest, the 78, came first and in aesthetic terms lay somewhere in between. And was duly sent scurrying into retirement by the so-called LP. If we must persist with this comparison (I must, I must), Twenty20 is the new 45 and Fifty50 the new 78.

For all that they brook few if any arguments, the ICC’s latest tinkerings have resulted in just one change, the belated extension of minimum boundary distances, that addresses the multiple Achilles heels of the 50-over brand. It achieved an inch when a mile – two innings per side - was wanted. All today’s antics achieved, for this less than dispassionate observer, was to underline why this town ain’t big enough for two necessary evils.