FLOWERY FIELD Cricket Club near Manchester is 160 years old and for roughly half of that time my uncle was a fixture there, first as a player, then as an umpire, and forever as that guy who's around first thing in the morning, rolling the wicket, sorting out the teas or mending the pavilion roof.
But always he kept five days free in his schedule for the Old Trafford Test. Then, along with 20,000 other red-blooded Mancunians, he'd put a sack of Boddington's bitter on his back and head off to watch England. He'd be lobster pink by noon of the
first day if conditions were right, but enjoyed the banter should the old adage apply: "If you can't see the Derbyshire hills, it's raining; if you can see the Derbyshire hills, it's about to rain."
I mention my uncle only because Ajay Jadeja brought him up during the frenetic Bollywood introduction to the Indian Premier League, on Setanta and in videos plastered all over the internet. All a-quiver on "this historic day", Ajay could barely keep in his seat. "It is no more the gentleman's game, it is for all of you, the ladies, the children, the uncles and aunties." What he was really thinking was on the banner in the crowd behind him: "I'm here to watch the girls dancing, not the cricket."
Uncle would probably enjoy a lot of this. Twenty20 has transformed moribund one-day cricket. It's a game of fantastic skill and fierce, bloody-minded competitiveness. A kind of boo-hiss gamesmanship lies just beneath the surface and quickly bubbles up when a sharp character like Chennai's Murali Muralitharan is chiselling away to prevent Harbhajan Singh slogging Mumbai to victory in the eighth game of the series. And even neutral spectators can feel a knot in their stomachs, as a huge target is whittled away and an unlikely win becomes feasible.
The commentators are engaging too. I enjoyed Laxman Sivaramakrishnan (LS to his mates), a photofit of a prosperous, dignified Indian gentleman, whose eye was drawn to the unfamiliar sight of long-legged cheerleaders prancing around on the square. Half an hour later, LS had disappeared from the studio, apparently to "inspect the pitch" but in the teeth of allegations that he was "installing himself at short leg".
What baffles me – especially since I keep hearing how much Indians love cricket – is why the country's squillionaire businessmen can't scatter a little stardust over the five-day game. Its ebb and flow is unique, and who cares if after all that time the result is a draw? The theory is that Twenty20 is perfect for the sober suits of the thrusting Asian Tiger economies who are looking for instant fixes, in their downtime from changing the geopolitical balance of the world. But what's left for blokes in Britain, who only wanted to get away from the wife for five days to watch cricket and drink ale? Just ale.
The wind's blowing the same way in snooker, a game I've never really believed in. Its popularity is based on Pot Black, a show from "the golden age of television" which attracted an audience only because it was less dismal than the TV news during the Winter of Discontent.
The game was invented in India by British army officers at the height of the Raj, who brought it home, where its spotty superstars have traditionally emerged blinking from licensed premises. Not any more. Within a decade it is predicted that the top 16 players in the world will all be Chinese, and this year fresh-faced Liang Wenbo has been potting away in the world championship as if tomorrow had already arrived. You can bet your bottom dollar that Liang doesn't run on jungle juice.
Shaun Murphy, a former world champion, kept his profile up by arriving in an outfit glistening in Swarovski crystals, aping the appearance of his mentor Willie Thorne, who achieved unexpected fame by turning out in Strictly Come Dancing. "We're on stage in a theatre, why not dress up?" said Murphy. "And yes, I'd love to do Strictly."
Mate, in our pot-bellied culture, it'll soon be your only shot at glory.
The full article contains 714 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
