What If I Told You Test Cricket Wasn’t Boring?
The first point I should be very clear about is that the greatest things about test cricket are neither the players nor the game. “What’s left?” you may ask. The answer is vibes, and these cricket specific vibes are an absolute joy to immerse yourself in.
The Oval Experience
For this large scale social experiment, gather together about 50 000 cricket fans, douse them in an unlimited supply of Castle Draught and leave them in direct sunlight for the entire day. Repeat for five days in a row from 10 am till sundown. As there is no real purpose beyond cheering for the occasional wicket or boundary, creativity starts to flourish in the most joyful and collaborative ways.
- You have the group of about fifteen highly energised first-year UCT students who will make relentless attempts to get the entire stadium to comply with their desire to kick start an hour-long Mexican wave.
- You have the razor-tongued hecklers who do sporadic sets of insult comedy at whichever cricketer that happens to be within earshot. Even Dale Steyn, one of the best bowlers ever to grace the pitch, is not immune to the occasional “COME STEYN!” from the stands.
- You have the tradition of absurdist prop comedy that can involve anything from watermelon helmets to entire blocks to fans with fake Hashim Alma beards strapped to their chins.
- You have the Newlands tradition of stacking up the plastic beer cups into a multi-storey high tower. It eventually collapses and gets reborn as a horizontal snake that reaches across the entirety of the grass bank.
Now you may be thinking, “Sure, those are some great points Hugh Upsher, but what about watching test cricket on TV?” Granted, the experience is incomparable, yet somehow equally fulfilling in its unique audiovisual format.
The Commentators
For those unfamiliar with test cricket, the game includes drinks breaks, tea breaks, lunch breaks, rain delays, rogue animal/streaker interruptions and multiple maiden overs where zero match progress is made. What is left is two whimsical characters who have decades upon decades of experience in delivering top quality banter for hours on end.
Like a neverending podcast of cheerful anecdotes, they can begin detailing a player’s tropical fish collection and then pivot to a particularly bad lunch they ate 30 years earlier. They effortlessly jump from elaborate hotel pranks to conjuring up fictional backstories of random spectators that the cameramen have singled out.
The Cameramen
These people are handed the equally challenging task of filling the quieter moments of any test with charming visual stimulation. Some of the recurring classics include:
- Any random bird. It’s a fantastic opportunity to show off their zoom lens and steady hands.
- The Moon. If it’s up there, they’ll put it on screen for 30 seconds at a time.
- Each other. When a test match is especially slow, why not capture the other cameramen on the job? Why shouldn’t the live editor cut between them for 3 minutes while they wave at each other like old friends on either side of a busy intersection?
- A kids cricket match happening on the grass bank. I once watched as they provided a side-by-side bowling action comparison between Shaun Pollock and some nine-year-old redhead.
I could deliver an entire TED Talk on why test cricket is superior to its bastard child T20. I could go on and on about the soothing nature of Micheal Holdings’ silky Caribbean accent. I could explore my complicated mix of admiration and disgust at the player tradition of wearing the same sweat-stained cap through the entirety of their decade long careers. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I don’t like cricket, I love it.
This article is dedicated to the memory of legendary Newlands ice-cream vendor Mogamat ‘Boeta’ Cassiem.