Baggy green woes: the crisis of Australian cricket

Gone is the measure of accountability essential to "baggy green" esprit de corps. According to Coward, there has been a conspicuous "refusal to accept a level of personal accountability," a state of affairs suggesting "a systems and communications failure on a grand scale."

There are broader issues here beyond the specific problems of Australian cricket. Cricket is being globally cannibalised from within, a point that has had unmistakable effects on the Australian game. Various forms of cricket are rendering competitiveness in the longer format less inviting, and even more importantly, less competent. Spread too broadly across the surface, the game has attenuated. The chaos at the Australian level is one at the international level, though it its effects vary.

An attention deficit syndrome, coupled with the desperate pull of finance, has made the pursuit of the longer game less tenable. Gradually, the glories of the test match are being put out to pasture, or at the very least, being left as an inferior variant of what it was.

Other, far more constructive matters can be taken from the season thus far. It is exciting to see an overseas team in the ascendancy on Australian soil, a rarity that should be celebrated. But loss is a bitter pill to swallow, and a diet of loss leads to manic desperation and visions of suicide. It is this state of despair that will take years to redress at the local level. The remedy, however, may have to be more international in scope.