Ten years ago, the International Cricket Council (ICC) organised the Super Series, in which a world XI took on the leading side of the era, Australia, in three one-day-internationals and a single, six-day Test.
The ICC was keen on it because they saw it as another product, an event that could be monetised in the gap years between a World Cup and the Champions Trophy.
On paper, the idea was not a bad one. Even though Australia had just lost their first Ashes in 19 years they were still the best side and one of the greatest of any era. To throw at them the might of the rest of the world made sense.
But there was plenty of criticism before the series. In a playing schedule already bursting at the seams, Fica, the global players’ association, among others, thought these matches were overkill. Others, traditionalists, feared that any Test cricket not played between nations was a bespoiling of the good name of Test cricket.
As it turned out, that was nothing compared to the criticism after the hopelessly uncompetitive series.
It was an absolute dud.
The world team did not like it, feeling that they were not really playing for anything in particular, not even the US$1.3 million (Dh4.7m) prize money.
To this day, cranky old statisticians can be found agitating that the ICC records these games, and the statistics they produced, to be official and valid (memo: if they are on StatsGuru – and they are – they are official).
If at all it is remembered, it is as the “Super Farce”. That preciousness though is emblematic of Test cricket and never more evident than now, exactly a decade later, as the ICC prepares for another experiment.
At the end of November, Adelaide will play host to cricket’s first day-night Test between Australia and New Zealand. And just at this moment, it is difficult to find anyone in favour of it.
Ricky Ponting thinks the idea goes against the history and tradition of Tests. New Zealand’s players saw the concept as gimmicky. But once the prospect of a million-dollar sweetener (we get old, our susceptibilities to money do not) and regular contests with Australia was dangled, they agreed.
Mitchell Starc, Adam Voges, Peter Siddle and Josh Hazlewood all worry about the durability of the pink ball that will be used. Some of the reasons for scepticism are valid.
Will the pink ball hold up? And as it gets older, will it remain easy to track?
And in that twilight period, as the sun sets and the floodlights are on, batsmen have struggled. But predominantly it is the preciousness that is palpable again, the sense that a day-night Test is somehow an affront to Tests and its sense of competition.
In a spunkier echo of those statisticians, Starc has even suggested day-night Tests should be treated separately for the purposes of records.
That is one of the unfortunate by-products of the self-regard Test cricket has but also, more significantly, the world it currently inhabits.
These are hysterical days, where every Test is proof that the format is dead, or that it is alive and resplendent.
No Test is just a Test match, you know?
The mere suggestion of tweaks is a sign of the world’s end.
The Super Series was a failure but that was all it was, an intriguing idea that did not work. It did not break the back of overburdened players.
It did not make a mockery of Tests. “No harm has been done, though,” the late Peter Roebuck wrote after the Test. “No one can be blamed for trying something.”
In much the same spirit, what harm will a solitary day-night Test do to Test cricket’s history, its traditions, or players’ records? It might not make for a great Test but there are plenty of those during the day too. Why not dive in first, see how it is and then decide? One other point merits noting. In 2005 the Australians were actually keen to play the Super Series. The Ashes loss had hurt them.
They wanted to prove, once and for all, that they were the best team in the world, possibly in history.
That series was an opportunity. This Australian side, of such vocal objectors?
Had they been in a better team than they are, perhaps they would feel differently.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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