I spent most of yesterday watching England beat Bangladesh in a One Day International, ODI, Cricket match at one of the most renowned cricket grounds in England; Trent Bridge, Nottingham. I was not altogether happy with the experience.
Many of you out there who know nothing of cricket will be aghast to learn that an ODI takes about 8 hours to complete. Many of the 7000 or so 'spectators' have a low attention span and an unclear idea of the sport anyway. So Sky Sport who manipulate the proceedings have to build up a sense of excitement and of things happening. Every time a wicket falls, a batsman is out or a 4 or a 6 is hit there is an ear splitting burst of music. You can't bring booze into the ground and bags are searched in a manner reminscent of airports. The hapless spectator can only acquire alcoholic products bought at the ground. Many of these drink loads of the overpriced cat's piss lager or even buy a bottle of white wine plonk for £15 with a silly wine glass shaped receptacle to slurp it from. Of course the wine is luke warm within half an hour and near boiling point as the brainwashed clone of humanity sucks the last drop from the bottle. In this booze soaked haze Jo Soap with his mates is convinced that he is having the time of his life. There's Mexican waves, giant rabbits, outlaws, bears what fun.
The usually brilliant Notts (you Notts!) scoreboard, under the control of Sky, flashes adverts and diversions for the stupefied masses. Some of these clones are wandering about attached to a big earphone on a string. I think Nat West, whoever he is, has something to do with it. There's the stench of fast food whereever you go.,
What about the players trying to have a sporting duel at the highest level? Although it was a foregone conclusion that England would win the radio commentators thought that some of our batsmen gave their wickets away. I can easily forgive the players for losing concentration in this lunatic assylum atmos.
Let's face it; for half the 'watchers' what was happening in the middle was an irrelevance.
If you want to learn about what true cricketing grit entails read the eponymously titled book by Duncan Hamilton about the greatest fast bowler of all time, Harold Larwood.
