Feeling confused, cricket fans? Relax, soon you’ll be cheering for a man with two names
It’s been the most confusing, haphazard start to a cricket season in living memory, but among all the dross there’s one name that you won’t want to forget, writes Jim Tucker
The T20 World Cup can’t start quickly enough to create some order for disorientated cricket fans who feel the new season so far is like paint tins thrown at a wall. There’s an explosion of colour, movement and white balls streaking everywhere but little of it makes sense.
In recent weeks, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, the West Indies and England have played quickie series in Australia. If you blinked, like me, you missed an even quicker tour of India last month when Aaron Finch’s team squeezed in three T20 games.
If it’s Friday, we must be in Canberra or is it Chennai. That’s how fans feel.
Fast food cricket is fine but even too much popcorn chicken from KFC gives you a stomach ache.
The T20s against the men from the Caribbean and England, which wind up on Friday night in Canberra, have a valid reason as bona vide warm-ups games to tune the Australians for the tournament.One fresh name really jumps out…Tim David. More on this exciting thrashing machine later.
The haphazard opening six weeks of the season has really rankled because the game has tossed away the enchanting rhythm it once had. A tour by any international side was trumpeted. I even include Zimbabwe in this because you once had time to appreciate how good Heath Streak was as a fast bowler when his country was the third wheel in a Benson and Hedges World Series.
A one-day series against New Zealand was once a high point in a summer with fractious big brother-little brother tones and some juicy niggle. This year, the three games were dispatched to Cairns. It was great for the far north just as Townsville cricket diehards relished watching the Aussies against the Zimbabweans.
The thing is, if your ruling body treats the season’s schedule like a dog’s breakfast, your fans will soon enough find it lacks a special quality as well. More international cricket is not necessarily better cricket even if we all understand the myriad forces distorting the schedule with T20 leagues springing up everywhere and India’s powerbrokers clicking fingers on demands.
You might like
When your Indian Uber driver doesn’t know there’s cricket on at the Gabba that’s when you know the compass to the season has gone wacky. That’s why this T20 World Cup and the 400-plus sixes to be belted across the country, from Sunday, are so needed to give cricket a united, coherent meaning.
My recent trip to the Gabba was to watch the Australia-West Indies T20 match. The action didn’t lure me because of some eerie vibe that the former kings of cricket might be unleashing a new Brian Lara, a fierce Malcolm Marshall clone or a broader-than-broad Richie Richardson hat.
You can always hope but, predictably, it was three strikes. The trip was really to get an appetite for T20 fare ahead of the tournament and to size up the one curiosity in the batting order.
Tim David is a batsman with two first names like just a few Australian Test cricketers of the past, Peter George, Peter Allan and John Harry. At 1.96m, he is built to send balls into orbit. He does and often.
He dwarfed batting partner Steve Smith. The former Australian captain always fidgets at the crease like he has bees inside his shirt, trapped under his left pad and in his batting gloves.
David has an uncomplicated stance and footwork without superfluous movements. He’s also a genuine thumper with fast hands who bludgeons on the drive, through cover point, over mid-wicket and into the atmosphere at cow corner.
Stay informed, daily
In a blink, he scored 42 with three sixes off 20 balls. He’s going to be a beauty in this T20 World Cup and very few know anything about “Tim Who?” or “David Who?”
David, 26, got his international break with Singapore because of a quirk of birth when his parents were living there even though he grew up in Perth. He’d played a little BBL but more successful short-form cricket in England, The Netherlands, Pakistan and India.
Picking a cricketer for Australia from a non-traditional pathway? Australian cricket just never does this.
He’s a million-dollar figure for the Indian Premier League in 2023 because he just puts down the pedal and goes. You want a 6-4-6 telephone prefix dialed in the 19th or 20th over, David’s blade at the crease is where you’ll get it.
The beauty of the true cricket fan is that he or she can still tell what is the real thing, the cricket with substance.
As soon as an India v Pakistan clash was scheduled for this T20 World Cup, passionate fans circled the date. The October 23 clash at the MCG was sold out in minutes. An additional release of 4000 standing room-only tickets was snapped up in 10 minutes. That’s 90,000-plus tickets sold. That’s incredible even for one of cricket’s greatest rivalries.
India’s appearance in a double-header at the SCG has generated another sellout of close to 43,000 while the Australia v NZ clash at the same Sydney ground on October 22 has less than 1000 tickets left.
Now we’re talking. Big cricket, big tournaments, always hook us. What doesn’t is the diet of frolics in between that cricket administrators have rendered meaningless by saturating the market.
By the time Queensland fans want a piece of this T20 action they’ll get a shock that Hobart is hosting more games than the Gabba. The best of it for Brisbane will be Australia playing Ireland, Scotland, Zimbabwe or the Windies on October 31 unless you have Kiwi or Barmy Army blood for the NZ v England clash on November 1.
A sneaky tip. My regular Uber driver won’t be available on Monday. The Australia v India warm-up match from 3pm (AEST) at the Gabba will be going nuts as the first of seven warm-up games to attend in Brisbane next week.
By the way, if you are looking for a breakout player for this T20 World Cup, remember both of his first names.
Tim David. You’ll know him when he starts saturating us with sixes.
Jim Tucker has specialised in sport, the wider impacts and features for most of his 40 years writing in the media.
