I love athletics but it terrifies me that the sport hasn’t moved on since I was competing It’s getting farther behind
Posted in General on 06. Sep, 2010
I love athletics, but it terrifies me that the sport hasn’t moved on since I was competing It’s getting farther behind. If people want to keep squabbling about which people sit on which committee, then the sport hasn’t got a future.”At Morpeth Harriers, where Bateman has been secretary for 30 years, the picture is not quite so bleak. The Northumberland club boast a climbing membership, a thriving youth section, and a record of success at national level stretching from the 1960s. “Clubs do need to be encouraged to recruit,” Bateman said, “but I don’t think having such a bureau-cratic set-up is going to do anything for recruitment at grass-roots level. What they should be doing is taking clubs with them rather than imposing a structure upon them.”. To win the only Test match in the unfortunately named Super Series, the ICC World XI were left at the end of the second day with the daunting prospect of having to do something that had spectacularly eluded them. This was to perform as though they were the best cricketers on the planet, instead of a ragtag bunch making up the numbers in Upper Clogthorpe Thirds.
It specifically entailed recovering from a first-innings deficit of 155, which had been extended to 221 by the premature close. They have not got where they are without producing a cricketing trick or two, but playing for this world is one thing, playing out of it another.
For almost all of the first two days this Test went pretty much the way of the three one-day matches between the sides last week; that is, Australia all the way. The proposal to call the whole package a Super Series is looking as wise as Frank Zappa’s decision to name his daughter Moon Unit and his son Dweezil.Nor is that the extent of the misguided names around. The International Cricket Council mandarins must be cringing at the repeated below-par displays of the team bearing their brand. Why did nobody call them Upper Clogthorpe Thirds and be done with it?It is easy to be smart after the event, and one of the objectives of the ICC in arranging these matches was to make money for their members and associates.
In principle that is wholly admirable, also fulfilling as it does the understandable cravings of the television paymasters who sustain the game.But the desperation to give the matches an official credence they did not quite deserve (or need) was quickly apparent. The ICC chief executives’ committee twice asked their board to make the matches full internationals, so they could be quasi-competitive and enter the records.On the first occasion they were rebuffed, but there was another request after the Tsunami Relief match had been granted official status. That had been an entirely understandable reaction to the tragedy, and thus was a can of worms opened. There will be no end to it now.It seemed rum that the ICC should invoke past clashes involving World teams to boost this series (“Cricket enjoys a welcome tradition of composite teams,” they said in the initial announcement). Yet they have steadfastly refused to grant them official status in retrospect when games – in England in 1970 and in Australia in 1971-72 – consisted of proper five-match series in which the World XI clearly had time to blend as a team.