One of the depressing aspects of modern cricket’s eternal summer is the end of anticipation. Once, when cricket season meant summer rather than a vague and enervating nine-month convulsion unaffected by weather and logistics, a Test series was an event worth writing books about. No more.
Times and attention spans have changed, and the arrival in South Africa of the best batsman in the world this week barely stirred jaded correspondents to clunk out a single column here, an advertorial filler there. Donald Bradman and Denis Compton got both front and back pages in their day. Brian Lara got the equivalent of the week’s horoscopes.
Those scribes and supporters resigned to the glum treadmill of international sport will defend their lack of enthusiasm with a derisive look back at Lara’s last visit here, the awful shambles of four years ago.
There can have been few more disappointing tours, and Lara was central to the sense that we had been cheated: his batting was frenzied and dreadful, the flailing of a man drowning in expectation and ego.
His team came dressed in the robes of their reputation, embossed with that gloriously resonating little badge — its island, its palm-tree, its constellation — and embroidered with the unmatched glamour of Alf Valentine, Charlie Hall, Everton Weekes, Garfield Sobers, Viv Richards.
Donald and Pollock left the robe in tatters in the first session of the first Test, a cruel disillusionment for South African fans still infatuated with the idea of Caribbean cricket. This week’s silence suggested we are still nursing our disappointment.
But tours are curiously deceptive in that they present only a small window on a wide landscape. South Africans will always remember Australians Greg Blewett and Michael Slater as monstrous invulnerable run-machines, unaware of the career-ending mental and technical flaws in their games that have since dumped them off the international stage.
Daryll Cullinan will always be a joke to Australians who never saw him slaughter England, India, the West Indies — in fact, everyone except Australia. And for many local followers of the sport, Lara is still that chubby prodigal showpony of 1999.
Now almost 35, Lara will not tour South Africa again. Therefore whether his summer is poor or sublime, he should be watched and remembered, because he is undoubtedly the greatest batsman of his era. Less consistent than Steve Waugh, certainly, and half the technician that Sachin Tendulkar is, but neither the Australian nor the Indian can touch Lara’s instinct and passion.
The summer’s entertainment is Lara. The rest of his team shows flashes of promise — Ramnaresh Sarwan is perhaps the first class act to emerge from the Caribbean since his captain — but it is young, inexperienced, somewhat ragged, and should be thrashed. But if ever the fates were going to allow Lara one final flourish, now is time.
For those of us who were so disappointed, there would be no finer sight than Lara in full cry. And certainly no finer way to say, goodnight, sweet prince.