Our correspondent also finds Barbenheimer parallels in cricket, and looks at what Tamim Iqbal can learn from Stuart Broad
Alan Gardner14-Aug-2023It’s the cross-cultural event of the northern summer. It’s a vibe, it’s a thing, it’s mainly about selling tickets. On the one hand, a big pink slice of neon smiles and feel-good frippery. On the other, classical cinematography, weighty themes and serious-looking men in old-fashioned clothes. We are, of course, talking about Barbenheimer and the ongoing attempts to create a world where Test cricket can happily coincide with T20.It’s not quite the same as watching both back-to-back in one sitting, but launching into a month of the Hundred the day after the conclusion of the one of the most box-office men’s Ashes of all time – not to mention a critically acclaimed women’s series – felt like a pretty similar move by the ECB. Although a BBC-accredited doofus with a microphone literally describing Maitlan Brown as “a little Barbie yourself” during the opening game was probably not the look they were after.No doubt the Ashes will be up for several awards when the academy sits down to take a view. Ben Stokes proclaimed afterwards that the series between England and Australia was “generally what Test cricket needed” – which must be good news for the likes of South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies, who barely have two cents to rub together, never mind two Tests. But then, like , what would the discussion around the format be without a heavy dose of nihilism?As for whether we will ever reach a point with T20 leagues where people say, “I’ve had Kenough” – well, it seems very much moot. The Hundred was dreamed up by the ECB to insulate English cricket from the biting winds sweeping through the game’s shifting global landscape, but while arguably doing more for feminism than , it already faces being cannibalised by the free marketeers investing heavily in Major League Cricket, Global T20 Canada and the like.Where does that leave us, the humble fan? Well, sit down and shut up because cricket’s version of – the bloated star vehicle that is the 50-over World Cup – is soon to be showing on all channels. Just don’t ask about getting tickets to see that one.
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Tell us you’re a byword for administrative incompetence without telling us you’re a byword for administrative incompetence – amirite, BCCI? Then again, if you’re in charge of organising a World Cup, more than a decade after your team last managed to win the tournament, then perhaps building in a little extra home advantage is to be expected. Touring teams will not only have to spend six weeks getting used to the conditions, the travel and the cultural differences – they’re also going to need a dedicated backroom staffer keeping an eye on the fixtures to make sure their next match hasn’t been brought forward a day and moved from Lucknow to Hyderabad at short notice.
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It’s okay, everyone. There’s no racism in cricket! Despite what you might have seen or heard from the recent ICEC report, the Azeem Rafiq scandal at Yorkshire, and public testimony from current and former players, everything is just fine and dandy in the English game, because Ian Botham says so. “I have never witnessed or been in the dressing room with any form of racism,” said Baron Botham of Ravensworth (formerly Sir Iron Bottom), to give him his full title. “You cannot generalise as that document does,” he said of the ICEC report, while offering a generalised summary of the whole thing as “nonsense”, most of which he hadn’t read anyway. But he’s friends with Sir Viv and once met Mandela, so we should probably just take his word for it.
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Stuart Broad was always a man who knew his mind and didn’t try to second-guess. Exhibit A: the celebrappeal, which was not so much asking the umpire’s opinion on a dismissal as allowing him time to catch up on the facts according to Stuart. So when he decided to call it a day, it was done – cue the farewell montages. Contrast with Tamim Iqbal, who has had a little trouble with the decision-making process recently. Last month, he announced his international retirement, only for it to be struck down by Bangladesh’s prime minister on review. Now he has made another bid for freedom by quitting the ODI captaincy. This one appears to have snuck through on umpire’s call, but Tamim could do worse than consult with Broad, the self-proclaimed “best in the world at DRS”, before making his next career move.