It’s all just a commodity

So South Africa won the Australian one-day triseries for 2001-02. They defeated New Zealand 2-0 in the best-of-three final, and congratulations to them. We should be thankful to them, too, for sparing us from an episode that would have shown us just a little more evidence that cricket is nothing but a commodity for television.

Game three of the finals was all set to be another day-night clash at the venue where night cricket all began, the Sydney Cricket Ground. Yes, what was meant to be: A 2.30pm start on a Sunday afternoon. Thirty to forty thousand chanting, screaming fans, a live nationwide telecast into evening prime-time, a ratings bonanza for the National Nine Network, and an Australian team with a shot at the title.

But there came to be a problem with this. Australia failed to make the finals, for only the third time in the 23-year history of the competition. The alarm bells were ringing at the Packer family’s Channel Nine at the beginning of the week. A Sunday night’s TV schedule taken up with a sporting event involving <i>two</i> overseas teams, and no Aussies in sight? And a chance that the game might not happen at all.

The solution? For Channel Nine to move their television program, er, cricket match to a less ratings-dependant timeslot. In other words, to get it changed from a day-night game to a day game, with the customary 10am morning start. Nine approached the Australian Cricket Board early last week with the request to shift the timing of the third final. The ACB, after consultation with other affected parties, including the South African and New Zealand camps, and the local state (New South Wales) association, agreed. The first international cricket match in Australia to be rescheduled because of television programming concerns was all set.

Thankfully, the South Africans won the finals in two: an eight-wicket rout at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of 20,000 spectators and 80,000 empty seats, and a hail-struck second final at the SCG where about ten thousand of the sell-out crowd didn’t bother turning up. The farce of rescheduled third final never came to be. South Africa proved they were the best team of a tri-series which didn’t rise to any great heights, beating a New Zealand team which had a better-than-expected tour of Australia, but ran out of puff when it mattered most.

And it was the tournament where the wheel came off the home side’s World Cup defence strategy.

The series had its share of outstanding individual performances on the field. Chris Cairns’ superb match-winning century against South Africa at the Gabba was one, Michael Bevan’s hundred, less spectacular but just as significant, against the Kiwis in Melbourne was another. The bowling of Shane Bond, who wasn’t even in the tour squad at the start of the season, was a revelation for New Zealand, the 26 year-old fast bowler’s 21 wickets for the VB Series putting him well ahead of any other player.

It was a series which, for me, was better remembered for other things. Glenn McGrath receiving a one-match suspension for an indiscretion while – of all things – batting, was just the start.

Visiting captains Stephen Fleming and Shaun Pollock complained that the tournament itinerary favoured Australia. There is no doubt that the dates and venues of the match-ups was set (as they are every year) to maximise the drawing power at the gate of the Australians. But hey, who was that team that came last again?

There were the divided opinions on the bonus point system, already familiar in Australian state competition but new to international play. The divisions grew wider after Fleming’s admission that he deliberately conceded a bonus point when his side was losing to South Africa in Perth.

And there was the running battle of Steve Waugh versus the South African press corps. An embattled figure with Australia’s 14-into-11 rotation policy crashing to Earth, and with his own form coming under question, Waugh’s off-the-cuff asides at press conference were being pounced upon. An apology was forthcoming after an apparent remark that doctors “didn’t find a brain” when they did a CAT scan on South Africa’s Steve Elworthy. A comment, as he was leaving a difficult press conference, that the media were a bunch of “cockheads”, met compassion from the ACB’s chief executive. Maybe because, by their very nature of their jobs, the media are.

If there’s good to be had from the 2001-02 international season from an Australian point of view, it is that the New Zealand cricket team can now be seen as credible rivals to the Australians, not unlike (politics permitting) India and Pakistan. There are so many sports in which Australia and New Zealand are bitter, but healthy rivals, and the instigation of a cricketing equivalent of rugby’s annual Bledisloe Cup between the Trans-Tasman foes would, if it were to happen, be a ratings bonanza for the Nine Network.

Oops, there’s that talk of TV ratings again.

As a postscript, an ironic observation that I couldn’t help making: the potential third final was bumped from the TV schedule by the Keanu Reeves science-fiction movie “The Matrix”, which was filmed at Fox Studios Australia, literally right next door to the SCG.

New Zealand women’s tour of India cancelled

[This article was originally published on the defunct Cricketwoman website in 2001. – RE]

The New Zealand White Ferns tour of India set down for late November and December has been cancelled due to security concerns.

The decision to call the tour off was announced on November 1 by New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden, who said in a press release that it was an “extremely difficult decision” to reach, but that “the level of risk which exists here [in touring India] is unacceptable.”

Snedden went on to say that, unlike security arrangements promised by the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) for the English men’s tour of India, which begins in a fortnight, the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) would be unable to organise special security arrangements. Snedden added that the WCAI is an organisation which has a voluntary administration and few resources.

Snedden said that the players had not been consulted about the cancellation of the tour. “This is a team of amateur players. It did not seem right to me for New Zealand Cricket to place any degree of responsibility on the players to make the decision.”

CricInfo reports that New Zealand captain Emily Drumm felt “gutted” when she learned of the tour’s cancellation, but had no problems with the decision made by NZC CEO Snedden.

WCAI secretary Anuradha Dutt was reported by CricInfo as expressing regret upon receiving notification of the NZC’s decision. Disagreeing with Snedden’s viewpoint, Dutt said “I can’t really imagine the New Zealand women being in any real danger in India.”

“They’d be much safer here than in many western countries,” Dutt said. “But it’s their psychological perception that matters, and I can’t really make a decision for them.”

New Zealand were to have played three tour matches, five one-day internationals and one Test between November 29 and December 21. The first five matches on the tour would have been played at Delhi and neighbouring Faridabad, before moving north to Chandigarh – approximately 200km from the Pakistani border and 700km from Afghanistan – for one match on December 6. The remaining matches on tour were set for Lucknow, Calcutta and Jamshedpur, in the north-east of India.

The White Ferns, who were unable to secure a replacement international series, will now have to wait until their three-ODI tour of Australia in February for their next international experience. India are scheduled to receive the England team in February before visiting South Africa.

Further information:
NZC press release

CricInfo report on Anuradha Dutt’s reaction

Was this the greatest World Cup final ever?

“Today’s game – won by New Zealand by four runs with five balls remaining – was filled to the brim with drama and tension. For me, it surpasses the encounter at Lord’s in 1975 between the West Indies and Australia as the greatest World Cup Final, men’s or women’s, of all time.”

More of my account of the 2000 Women’s Cricket World Cup Final at Cricinfo.