The rise from the ashes

August 14, 2011
Posted by Michael Jeh 51 minutes ago in Michael Jeh
A modern team that could reinvigorate the old game
Alastair Cook is understated and classy © Getty Images
Irony. One of the most underrated pleasures. Best savoured slowly and with none of the joy and exhilaration that comes with winning or triumphalism. It's almost bitter-sweet in flavour because it brings with it no great sense of personal achievement or patriotic fervour; just a wry smile and a shake of the head.

Irony is spread thick on British toast this Sunday morning. In a week which Andrew Strauss described as not being one of England's finest hours (with reference to the riots), the much-maligned English cricket system of the last 20 years finally brought the throne back to the birthplace of the game. On one hand we have a staid, traditional, somewhat old-fashioned country (in the nicest possible way I might add) showing off an ugly modern face that looked so incongruous among the iconic tourist sights of London. Barely a few days later we saw a slick, ruthless and thoroughly modern cricket team, even down to the style of clothing they now wear on the field, polish off a tired but formidable (on paper) Indian batting team that boasts many of the modern greats.

There is nothing old-fashioned or traditional about this England team, even down to the Irishman in the middle order and the various other players whose heritage can be traced back to the four corners of the globe but who are now as proudly British as you like. No sense of disenfranchised youths among this lot! And all of this in an old British city (Birmingham) that is now as famous for its Indian balti restaurants as anything else. Ironic indeed.
For India, the gentle fall to earth was predictable but surely it must hurt a little bit to relinquish the No. 1 ranking so meekly. Okay, it is clear that Test cricket is not necessarily at the top of the BCCI's priorities and that is their prerogative. India have earned the right to prioritise their own goals and who would begrudge them that privilege? They are the World Champions in the shorter format, their innovative economy has reinvented Twenty20 cricket to the extent that everyone is copying their blueprint. The irony I suppose is that for a country that scoffed at Twenty20 cricket when it was first born, it took but one triumph in South Africa a few years ago, when a young MS Dhoni led a team of pups to a world championship, for India to now relegate Test cricket to a definite second, third or even fourth priority. No one at the BCCI will ever admit it but maybe even IPL ranks higher in the pecking order.

India are not the only ones seduced by that mistress - Australia too have proved that despite the rhetoric, IPL contracts are on a par with any sense of national duty. We only have to remember Michael Hussey and Doug Bollinger arriving late for a Test series in India because of commitments with Chennai Super Kings to realise that it would be hypocritical to single out the home nation as the only ones smitten by the IPL's fluttering eyelashes.

It is ironic too that for a country that is widely regarded as the most cricket crazy nation on earth, the longer form of the game has lost its spectator appeal. You would think that for a nation which loves cricket as much as India does, the more cricket the better. To a certain extent that is true but it's not the five-course meal that Indians now love to watch. They have embraced the take-away, fast-food concept and are now exporting it with added spice! Some people would argue that the Indian cricket fan still follows Test cricket as closely as ever but they just don't like watching it at the stadium. Even allowing for some of that, looking from afar, one can't help but feel that the players themselves know that their real stardom lies in the shorter format.

With the retirement of Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar looming, one cannot help but feel that they will take a bit of that five-day magic with them. Virender Sehwag has a magnificent Test record but such is his style that one tends to link him more closely to the shorter game, although his numbers suggest that he's actually a more credentialed Test player than anything else. More irony.

For England, I can only see a fairly extended reign at the top. They will need to find a spinner to replace the excellent Graeme Swann but the rest of their squad looks robust and endurable. Now that Kevin Pietersen's star has waned slightly, they lack the genuine stars that the Australian and Indian dynasties boasted during their reigns but ironically (there's that word again!), that actually makes England a more complete outfit. In Alastair Cook they have a future record-breaking run machine but it is probable that he will creep up silently on greatness in a manner quite unlike Tendulkar, Ponting, Sehwag, Lara et al.

Cook is the quintessential British stereotype in that respect - understated, efficient and classy without feeling the need to convince anyone else. He is unlikely to be the poster boy for junior cricketers in England but for all that anonymity, he might just be the dinosaur that Test cricket, and English cricket, needs to keep the embers burning.

Who will challenge England in the next few years? Just about everybody but I don't think they'll dethrone England for a few years yet. I don't think they will dominate to the extent that the Aussies crushed all before them during their halcyon period but in typical British tradition, they will be efficient and clinical, winning more than they lose in the next half-decade. I rate South Africa as their most likely challenger for no other reason than they have the same efficient work ethic that Andy Flower has managed to instill into this team. The South African domestic system is quite robust and, like county cricket, it doesn't necessarily have to be the best domestic competition in the world to turn out a squad of about 15 players who can take on the world. Mind you, a question for another blog piece might be the issue of which country has the best first-class system. Australia can no longer claim that as its birth-right but who else has the depth to match it?

Not to be particularly jingoistic - I don't really care who sits on the throne - but after watching Britain's youth laying waste to a proud country that I so dearly love from my many years of playing cricket and my days as a student at Oxford, I can only hope that Strauss and his men realise that cricket needs them to rule with a velvet glove not an iron fist. We've seen what can happen when young people feel disenfranchised and ignored by the powerbrokers - regardless of whether we agree with their gripes or not (and frankly, I don't!); cricket too, even Indian cricket, can learn something from that. Rule with grace, mind your manners, innovate with imagination but never forget that the roots of the game still lie in slow-growing soil. The Tendulkars of the world can grace any stage but his pedigree was born of traditional parenting. Watching a slowly unfolding Border/Dravid/Yousuf/Kallis/Warne masterclass in Test cricket is a pleasure that should not just be for the video archives - there's room in cricket for all types of kingdoms.

The King is dead. Long live the King. That's irony