The BBC is killing cricket

Full homage to the nail-biting cricketing miracle in Sydney, while bearing in mind that miracles, like lightning, rarely strike twice and it’s a toss-up whether England’s Test team or Novak Djokovic was more deserving of deportation from Australia earlier this week. But only Test cricket could conjure up such a climax after five days of fierce competition where one of the greatest batters the world has seen had just six balls to try to dismiss one of the greatest bowlers. Cricket eh! Bloody hell.

Breathtaking tension — think Arsenal having to beat Liverpool in 1989 by two clear goals, or Verstappen vs Hamilton in the final lap of the last Grand Prix — but it’s really just a sticking plaster on the otherwise somewhat gangrenous state of English red-ball cricket. What’s clear is that Test cricket is hugely important to the countless thousands of fans who were glued to those last few overs on their phones as their Sunday morning was rudely interrupted. And Joe Root’s haunted look throughout this series shows what it means to him. But there are problems: playing conditions that are unique to this country allow purveyors of medium–pace dobbers like Tim Murtagh (lovely man as he is) to be a highly successful county championship bowler, yet he could bowl for ever in a Brisbane Test without success. The BBC’s shameful near-total desertion of red-ball cricket has played a major role in dislodging the game from its place in English culture. Red-ball domestic matches have been marginalised to the fringe weeks of the season, so that high summer, when great players can develop their craft, has been dedicated to simply an exercise in six–hitting. Too many state schools have lost their cricket pitches, and the great reserves of sporting talent in our inner cities are now drawn overwhelmingly to football.