Neil Manthorp Cricket
Identifying a defining moment in history becomes easier with every year that passes after that moment. Doing so at the time is an altogether different challenge. A much less precise science. But let’s try anyway.
On Tuesday January 18 2000, the game of Test cricket was changed forever, for the better, by a man with a reputation for conservatism virtually unmatched among his peers in the international game.
Since March 15 1877, Test cricket’s administrators and national captains have made every effort to preserve the game in a kind of growth-stunting formaldehyde. Uncle Bill’s kidney stones in a jam jar.
When it rained the game was ruined – simple equation, as are the phrases “well, that’s cricket” and “the weather is part of the game”. Test match captains never, ever gave their opposition a chance of victory and some people would swear they actually seemed happy when it rained because it eliminated the possibility of defeat.
But let’s be fair to the captains of yesteryear, the pioneers who devoted large chunks of their lives to playing the game for fun, not a living.
Teams from England, Australia and South Africa might have expected to play five or six Tests a year, and maybe even fit in two series – but often it would just be the one.
In order to play those series the team would spend between a fortnight and six weeks travelling by boat before returning home to their loved ones somewhere in the region of six months later. A considerable personal investment in any currency.
No wonder, then, Test matches were treated with deference. With cricket having “grown up” on sheep pastures and public commons, the social elite – and sporting elite, to be fair – raised themselves above the mediocrity by playing an elongated version of the game that rapidly came to be known as the best.
One other very important factor to consider is that cricket, and especially Test cricket, had a guaranteed audience because there was little else to attract the sports-oriented spectator. In those days there were still very clearly defined sporting “seasons” during which Bill Baker and Stan Steelworker would watch Rovers United FC in the winter and county/provincial/state cricket during the summer leading up to the Test match in his part of the country.
More importantly, Bill and Stan would take their sons with them and so Bill Jnr and Stan Jnr grew up in a sports-viewing routine that they never questioned. Cricket was safe … and cosy. So that is the way it was.
Then came aeroplanes and television. International teams started playing 12 or 15 Test matches a year and touring three or four times.
Test cricket remained very much at the top of the ladder but the great-grandchildren of Bill and Stan discovered MTV and basketball, and they thought tennis was good to watch.
Cricket, meanwhile, was advertising itself to potential customers by keeping its players safely tucked away in the pavilion because the light was a bit gloomy. And there was a wet patch on the field.
Other outdoor sports had moved into covered stadiums and were being played under floodlights with slow-motion replays and roaming hot-dog vendors to keep the crowd entertained. Cricket, meanwhile, was preserving it’s dignity.
In England the game actually decayed to the point where it was regarded as a minor sport and failed to attract serious sponsors, either for Test cricket or even one-day cricket.
Many cricket captains have boldly announced “you have to be prepared to lose in order to win” but evidence of their conviction in that statement was thinner than nothing until March 19 1968. On that day Sir Garfield Sobers (then just “Gary”) declared on the last day of a Test match leaving England to score 214 to win in over two sessions. The match was played on a good pitch in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
Both teams were gobsmacked, some players even believing that Sobers had made a terrible, embarrassing mistake. He had not. He simply left his bowlers the minimum number of overs he believed they would need to bowl England out a second time.
England won the match by seven wickets with Colin Cowdrey adding an unbeaten 71 to his first innings 148. Sobers received death threats and there were riots in the streets of some Caribbean islands. Sobers was thought to have been a traitor and “sold out”.
History records the player Sobers was, and became, and the kind of character he was. History also recalls that after Sobers made that declaration the game of Test cricket was introduced to the concept of the “challenging declaration”. It happened again after that.
Hansie Cronje’s decision to “make a game of it” on the last day of the Centurion Test, after three days of washout, was an even greater decision – much more important to the survival of the five-day game than any other.
The ramifications will be vast and the perception that losing a Test match is akin to homicide will disappear. Captains will try to win and their players will try to entertain, as they must.
Former South African star batsman Graeme Pollock describes a cricketer’s duty beautifully: “When Joe Public pays money for a ticket he has bought a product, and that product is entertainment. If the players don’t try to provide that product then they are cheating.”
Victorious England captain Nasser Hussain, after the Test, appeared almost to implore the world to take note of what Cronje had done: “I just hope that Hansie gets the credit he deserves -it was an incredible thing to do for the game, for cricket.”
Cronje will be credited. Maybe not now, or next year, and maybe not even in the rest of Cronje’s playing time, but Tuesday January 18 will be remembered. Whenever captains thrust for victory, whenever they “make a game of it” and are prepared to lose in order to win, people will say “it’s a Cronje day” or “it’s a Cronje decision” or “a Cronje agreement has been reached”.
What a great legacy to leave the game. Now score some runs, too, skipper!