The Teleology of Cricket

On Wednesday night I went to the first Twenty/Twenty state cricket in Australia, down at the WACA. Cricket has always been at traditional bonding point for my father and I, so off we went, taking my mum along for her first ever live cricket experience. For the non-cricket indoctrinated, twenty/twenty cricket means each side has only 20 overs, rather than the usual 50 of one day cricket, along with various other rules designed to encourage lots of action for the audience.

Cricket, to me anyway, is as much about people-watching as it is about the match itself. There was the spot-the-other-women-in-the-bar game (8 women, 1 girl in among the very long queues), doing the Mexican wave (and seeing if it made it through the members stand), and watching the rahter violent competition for the beach balls.

I missed the certainty you get in going to a test match that you can look away from the game for five minutes and nothing will have happened, the sense that a whole day of relaxed spectating and drinking and talking stretches before you. And so for a moment I found myself thinking, 'oh twenty/twenty is okay if it will lead people to coming to other cricket matches and eventually getting the proper original experience.' This made me realise I was setting up teleology of cricket, in a similar way that an author I'm reviewing does with Lord of the Rings merchandise and the books. Tracing origins may be useful, but if it obscures a fuller understanding of what is going on or what people or doing with these 'derivative' forms that usefulness is lessened.

So a reflective thumbs up for twenty/twenty, and a nostalgic resolution to go to a test game sometime.