What If I Told You Test Cricket Wasn’t Boring?

Hugh Upsher
4 min readSep 23, 2021

--

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.

This goofy-ass little trophy is the oldest and most respected object in the history of the sport.

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.
One of the finest moments in television history in my humble opinion

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.

Billy Bowden appreciation montage. This iconic umpire invented his own signals and no one dared to stop him.

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.
Me being told to stop talking about cricket even though I was just getting warmed up.

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.

--

--

Hugh Upsher
Hugh Upsher

Written by Hugh Upsher

Copywriter, video maker, artist & chilled dude.

No responses yet