Displayed inside a display cabinet on the upper level of the Melbourne Cricket Ground sits a electric pink outfit performed in by Robbie Williams. His performance in front of a massive crowd of fans was hailed as a success.
Perhaps you don't appreciate his music. Maybe you feel he is the greatest gift to music known to man. Or you could adopt a reasonable stance, admitting that some songs are excellent while others are terrible.
The point being is that entertainment can take many forms. Tastes vary. There is no one way to craft music or even Test cricket.
The Unrivalled Depth of The Long Game
Test cricket boasts incomparable variety. One struggles to think of another sport where the playing is so dictated by conditions.
The weather, the time of day, the cricket ball – the list is endless. Most important is the pitch.
If the long game is an artistic pursuit, the pitch is the foundation on which the athletes paint their masterpiece.
An Abstract Contest: The MCG Match
The recent Melbourne match between the two sides was Test cricket cubism, the great game taken to pieces and reconstructed in abstract form.
Let's be clear, this isn't a defence of the surface which yielded a victory and the another sub-three-day finish of the contest.
Allowing 10mm of grass on the wicket, resulting in numerous dismissals tumbling in less than six sessions, is not an even battle between bat and ball.
A Rich Tapestry: The Essence of Test Cricket
But any notion this was a inferior show, one that should be marked with an asterisk as inauthentic, is wide of the mark.
Test cricket is a rich tapestry, a long history and still growing. On occasion, as seen at the MCG, the cricket ball does all sorts for the fast men. In contrast, it turns square on a spinning track. At other venues, the pitch is unresponsive, other times it spits like a cobra.
The close matches are particularly captivating owing to the time committed elsewhere.
Adaptation: The Real Challenge
Some factors are embraced more easily than others.
The debate in at the MCG was that the balance was skewed excessively towards the fielding side. That the top batters were hindered from playing their natural game.
This level of cricket is about adapting to challenges – reading the situation and adjusting accordingly. The best individual contributions were made by world-class players. One line-up committed more errors than the other, and thus lost.
Pure Elation: The Fan Perspective
Go and inform the fans who have suffered 18 winless matches that this wasn't compelling.
Among the crowd of the MCG, countless fans celebrated and chanted, fostering a festive mood in a heartland of national pride.
There was belief as the fielding side dominated, advantage when players responded, and pure joy when the win was achieved.
Contrasting Examples: The Variety of Test Matches
The MCG has form with controversial surfaces. In the past, a match there featured a pitch with the excitement of a a damp squib.
That contest was a grind, with minimal action and endless boredom. This recent match and that drawn affair are polar opposites of the spectrum – one is not more perfect, yet historical weight can be attached to each.
At this stage into the Ashes contest, it is the quick finishes that will remain iconic in the collective consciousness.
"This isn't the death of the format at all," commented a past champion. "Fans who have been fortunate to see these two days have been experienced some fantastic sport. Different entertainment."
Signs of Progress: Building for the Future
In the preparation to this match, the leader addressed the media like a man carrying the weight of the world on his back.
The squad responded for him, bringing back the smile to his face.
New faces performed with key contributions. These are incremental gains, certainly not enough to secure long-term futures, but a starting point to build on.
In the end, this MCG win takes its place among other memorable performances in dead rubbers.
As the fans slipped away into a stunning sunset, the squad assembled on the field to start their own celebrations.
Celebrate the win, men. This victory was hard-fought.
