Its what makes them so good

Subject: It's what makes them so good

We pride ourselves on being an inclusive nation, although some in the minority segments of the population would possibly disagree. To be inclusive is to search our inner conscience to bond with people who, on first sight we would find much to question. It's getting over that 'first impression', trying to find commonality, recognising that fundamentally we are all the same even if we think differently due to the cultural experience we grew up in. It's not a panacea for total immersion since culture does play an important part in how we react to something different and it also depends on how threatened we feel regarding our own cultural values.

All well and good but there are limits. Loving the Aussies when they have just drummed into us how poor at test cricket we have become is just one example of love thy neighbour has its limits and imagining Australia as a neighbour is pushing it a bit. Watching the English batsmen crumble under the pace attack of Josh Hazelwood and Pat Cummins one could only wonder what had become of technique, the age old skill learnt through the County apprenticeship to three day cricket where time at the crease was an advantage and one played the shot appropriate to the ball and not creating the shot in your mind before the ball was bowled. 

The white ball game as it is called, the 20/20 or 50/50 overs cricket so beloved by our impatient, 'want everything now' society, has destroyed the traditional game.  The craft of the batsmen who plied their game before the TV moguls redefined the game around the viewer and the needs of the Advertiser who was willing to pay big bucks to get an audience in front of the scree which they could then manipulate into a sale. The carefully crafted innings started with getting your eye in and slowly as you summed up what the bowler was doing your shots became more extravagant but always with the caveat that time was on your side.

Watching the English batsmen throw their bat at any ball, no matter how wide of the crease was like watching schoolboys play the game. 
Clearly the Aussie comes from different stock, his game is rooted in the old tradition, leaving the ball which doesn't threaten, and punishing those balls which are within the radius of the wicket but are deemed loose enough to score with. This is 3/5 day test cricket, a format we have forgotten and despite the hoo-ha of Joffrey Archer, our new West Indian bowler, we have to get back to the drawing board and relearn the game from first principles.
Is it the curse of the English to chase the new riches, the quick flashy buck of the money market rather than the slow slog of building a business from scratch. Is it the lure of the fast riches made on the sub continent in the razzmatazz which is the white ball game. Yes there was the ultra excitement of the last over against New Zealand in the 50/50 World Cup but that was vaudeville, not cricket and as with most of us I too was glued to the screen but it wasn't  cricket. The KiWi's who in all honesty deserved to win the contest have, at the root of their game, the same strategy to learning traditional stroke and adapting it to the game which the Aussies showed yesterday. It's no accident that the greatest players of rugby union are also traditionalist who learn their game on the pitches of New Zealand  before being drawn into the bright lights. It's what makes them so good.