England is going crazy for cricket, with newspapers pushing football coverage off the celebrated back pages on Tuesday to agonise over the country’s dramatic draw against Australia in the third Ashes Test.
The centuries-old game is enjoying a massive revival thanks to the heroics of England captain Michael Vaughan and his teammates who are battling to beat the Australians in an Ashes series for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Even the start of England’s treasured football Premiership over the weekend failed to trim columns of press commentary on what is being billed as the most exciting Ashes Test in living memory.
”It’s agony,” groaned the Daily Mail newspaper after Australia clung on for a draw to deny England victory with just one wicket standing in a thrilling finish to the third match in the five-part series at Old Trafford on Monday.
The Mail pictured Andrew Flintoff, England’s favourite bowler, despairing after Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne survived one of his fearsome bowls.
”The ultimate Test,” declared the left-wing Independent on page one.
”So near … and yet so far,” the newspaper added across its back page, with a photograph of Flintoff taking Matthew Hayden’s wicket next to one of fast-bowler Stephen Harmison clutching his head in anguish after failing to finish off Australia before a sell-out crowd in the Manchester stadium, north England.
The match even won a prime front-page spot with pictures in the Financial Times under the headline ”Test proves a big draw as Ashes catches fire”.
Newspapers noted how Old Trafford, typically the home of football club Manchester United, attracted twice as many people than its 23 000 capacity.
More than 20 000 fans, many of whom had camped outside overnight to buy one of the final-day tickets, were turned away and had to make do with watching the nail-biting action on a television screen, The Times newspaper said.
”Interest in the game, which for much of the past decade has been as unfashionable as [former prime minister] John Major, is starting to eclipse even that of football,” it said in an editorial.
”The opening of the Premiership season has been nothing like as exciting as this Test series,” the right-leaning newspaper said.
”Each ball during the final hour provided another serving of almost unbearable tension. Each player was an actor in a remarkable drama.”
The England cricket team have been growing in strength and popularity for the past couple of years, but wild dreams of beating Australia suddenly became a feasible reality when the team won the second Ashes Test on August 8 by just two runs — the closest victory in Ashes history.
Both sides will go into their fourth Test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on August 25 on level pegging — 1-1 — leaving a guaranteed riveting climax at the Oval in London next month.
Surging interest in the game will likely mean more lucrative commercial deals for players and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on top of sponsorship contracts with corporate giants such as Vodafone.
John Perera, the ECB’s commercial director, was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that the board expects to get ”a lot more interest from new commercial partners wanting to talk to us about cricket”, while it hopes to start a ”big licensing programme for the sport” before Christmas.
The independent television station Channel 4, which currently has the rights to broadcast the Test series live, has enjoyed winning ratings as viewers tune in to feast on cricket.
The Financial Times noted, however, that British satellite broadcaster Sky will take over the coverage from next season under a controversial deal. — Sapa-AFP