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    Articles tagged as: simon-barnes

    Twenty20: sport or reality TV?

    By Will 4 months ago, Comments

    Simon Barnes questions whether cricket needs Twenty20:

    Are we supposed to cheer for England? I don’t really think so; after all, the object of the match isn’t glory. It’s all about rich people suddenly getting even richer. Or not, of course.

    And I ask myself: am I really going to get over-excited about Kevin Pietersen’s chances of buying a second Porsche? No, this is not the kind of fixture that is going to stir up the ancient loyalties that spring from ancient traditions.

    But all the same, the match will have a kind of grisly fascination. I mean, say it comes down to the last ball, one wicket or one run to win; oh, and it’s a huge slog and the ball’s spiralling up in the air and if he catches it, every England player will get a million bucks, and if he drops it, they won’t, and who’s underneath it? Go, Monty, go!

    This kind of simple yes-or-no test is a staple of modern television, but it’s not sport, it’s reality TV. We don’t care what they’re doing, we only care whether or not they can pull it off under as much artificial pressure as possible. “It’s always been my dream,” they sob. “It’s the chance of a lifetime.” And they blow it, or they don’t, tears prick the nation’s eyes, and then we put the kettle on.

    It’s entertainment, but it’s not sport. In sport, the process itself matters: the beauties, the subtleties, the long-term relationships, the tactical nuances, the opposition, the quest for perfect execution. In reality TV, we put someone on the griddle, put him to the ultimate test, and then forget him for ever while we pour ourselves a nice drink.

    Would Twenty20 have survived 20 or 30 years ago? It’s highly unlikely. If anything, the new, whizz-bang version mirrors our modern society’s insatiable greed for immediate entertainment. I’ve spoken to lots of fringe-fans (mainly taxi drivers) who find Test cricket dull and too long-winded yet are taken in by Twenty20. They can’t stand the slow-drip tension over five days but are happy to set aside four hours of urgent, in-your-face sport, safe in the knowledge they will see a result. It’s slightly safer, certainly simpler than Test cricket. People don’t have the time they did 20 years ago - or rather, there is a pressure to be doing things all the time - but perhaps also they don’t have the patience.

    I suppose cricket should be applauded for reacting to what the public clearly want, but not if it comes at the expense of its grandest format.

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    The anguish of Adelaide

    By Will last year, mid-January, Comments

    I often enjoy Simon Barnes’s pieces at The Times and he’s produced a really crisp and imaginative recollection of the nightmare of the 2nd Test at Adelaide.

    It was cricket as it might have been written by Kafka: a hideous punishment, as unjust as it was incomprehensible, inflicted on people who had earned the right to expect better things from life. It was like playing cricket against the Gestapo: cricket as a form of atrocity in which resistance is useless. It was cricket as torture, in which pain and hatred become distorted into a loving and grateful submission to the torturer.

    I shall never forget the streets of Adelaide afterwards, the numb shock of the England supporters. These things don’t happen. We couldn’t have seen that. Brains simply refused to process the information they had received. The England press corps, a more resilient bunch on the whole, were to be found the next day at the airport, each with the thousand-yard stare of the Vietnam vet.

    That the torture only lasted an hour was something of a reprieve for us, for England. It was quick - still painful - and violent, and will never be forgotten. Like someone slitting a capillary on their wrist, England bled fatally. Barnes even goes as far to say that “it was the most extraordinary passage of cricket I have seen and one of the most shocking things I have witnessed in any sport”. I’m not sure I can quite agree, but nevertheless it was a period of play which must go down as one of the most captivating (or unwatchable, depending on which side of the fence you sit) in modern times.

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