If it feels so right, how can it be wrong? If it feels so good, how can it be bad? Once it was only star-crossed lovers in soaps who murmured such things to one another, looking out at the Styrofoam wave as it broke mechanically onto the plywood beach. Today they are the mantra of the gratification generation, and once the last shreds of discrimination oozed out of the beautifully moisturised ears of Generation Me, Twenty20 cricket was inevitable.
Those of us who feel that the 20-over game creates more problems than it solves are invariably called ”critics”, as if Twenty20 cricket has presented us with a complex tradition of theory and history, to which we apply equally complex rebuttals, dismantling this sporting canon point by point.
Naturally, this is an entirely inaccurate notion. Those who despair over the new game are not so much critics as janitors, just as Twenty20 cricket is not so much sport as it is swill. Our role is simple and endlessly repetitive: see, smell, gag, sigh, and try to hose the muck out of sight as fast as we can.
There’s no denying that 20-over cricket is often fun, as is vomiting off tall buildings on to unsuspecting passers by, shooting cats with air-rifles, and having unprotected sex with strangers. How can it be wrong if it feels so right? Take a look at the perforated, oozing frontal lobe of any crystal-meth addict, and you’ll have your answer.
The last analogy is not randomly chosen. Most compulsively pleasurable sensations fade over time — addiction wouldn’t be quite so destructive if the highs were always identical. The peaks flatten, and the troughs deepen, more hits of harder stuff are needed, until even these start to dilute.
The junkie’s law of diminishing returns has never been more obvious in international cricket than it is right now. This week, Pakistan and India played to a ludicrously inflated draw. It should have had us salivating about records and averages, but a day later it was forgotten. Ricky Ponting scored two centuries in his 100th Test to take Australia to an upset win in Sydney — the kind of thing Neville Cardus devoted slim volumes to. A week later, Ponting is a minor footnote in Australia’s VB series loss against South Africa.
That’s the trouble with hedonism. Fifty-overs cricket took 20 years to become dull and predictable. Twenty-over cricket has taken just a year to flat-line. Ten-over cricket — and it will come, with its half-time cheerleaders, puppet-shows and Christians thrown to lions — will feel interminable by the second innings.
Certainly, every so often there’s a four-off-the-last-ball chest-crusher, but if one accepts that such titillation rolls around once every nine or ten matches, you’re looking at a 70-hour wait for a half-hour’s pleasure. Put another way, that’s an hour spent waiting for 25 seconds of rapture. You might as well watch football.
All of which is why one can’t get particularly worked up about the one-day thrash currently underway in Australia. The Australians thumped Sri Lanka. South Africa thumped Australia. Sri Lanka thumped South Africa. Be still my beating heart. Of course, it hasn’t all been as meaningless as a Standard Bank Pro20 press conference. There were those dropped catches against Sri Lanka, which meant plenty, and promised plenty more.
Indeed, watch this space. More specifically, come March and the return series in this country, watch the space in our fielders’ hands where the ball should be.
In the meantime, three cheers for Shaun Pollock. Our television news curiously decided that it was Mark Boucher and Justin Kemp who had ”engineered a thrilling win” against Australia, apparently failing to recognise that nobody recovers from 71/6. The Ginger Ninja is looking increasingly like the Creaky Trebuchet, but as long as he’s knocking over Australian openers, who cares?