Sticky Wickets
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AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW 39 about current changes in our leisure. passive puppets, easily manipulated functions, in effect, as a trade More and more of our free time now into laughing in all the right places. union. involves consumption, and culture While the production of pleasure at In the post WSC year sin industries are the major providers in Wonderland may be extremely Australia a Players' Association this area. Culture industries employ disciplined, the consumption of it is was formed, but Ian Chappell large numbers of people and their much harder to control. Individual recently commented that: economic significance is growing. consumers at Wonderland use the "Apart from the fact that they So, too, is their cultural impact: the place in different ways, and bring are getting paid better I'd go so manufacture of experience shows their own meanings to bear on the far as to say that (the players) how difficult it is to assume that experiences and the pleasures it are back to 1977. That really pleasure or fun are purely offers. disappoints me. I think it is a spontaneous or individually based. Gay Hawkins pity the players didn't grab More and more, these sorts of hold of the game more than experiences are produced by they have .. the Players' GAY HAWKINS teaches in Leisure industries organised for pleasure. Studies at Kurinc-&al CAE in Sydney. Association (now the cricket This is not to say that the committee) has been a paper consumption of leisure makes us tiger really." For first-class cricketers in Australia the non-existence of an effective players' association could prove to be a major weakness. In Sticky Wickets England the professionals have achieved a greater voice and improved conditions only through hat is the future of first class and international Wcricket in Australia? It is now more than a decade since the World Series Cricket 'revolution' and it is worth asking whether more fundamental changes are likely. My own opinion is that, other than the South African controversy the present period in Australian cricket history is one of stability and consolidation - both on and off the field. In his excellent latest book, Street Fighting Years - An Autobiography of the Sixties, Tariq Ali writes that post 1975 period in Europe can be described as one of "history's enforced pauses, designed to make UR think and reflect before the next wave". If revolutionary change is slow, fundamental shifts within cricket are even more pedestrian. The advent of World Series Cricket in 1977 shattered the international cricket establishment. It was a watershed with few comparisons. In England decision cricketers were free to se11 self-organisation. The important the 'restraint of trade' court action their labour, like any other point is that in Australia the game won by Tony Greig and other and workers, to the highest bidder. The is becoming more professional and World Series Cricket in the second decisive influence has been will continue to do so over the next English High Court was one the growing strength of the few years. Lt>ading state and test crudal factor in changing the Cricketers' Association which cricketers increasingly view cricket working conditions of cricket organises all first-class as their profession. Indeed, the professionals. After that landmark professionals in England and demands of Sheffield Shield and 40 AUSTRALIAN LEFT REVIEW international cricket make that "Cricket is first and foremost a of England, has always been inevitable. Moreover, this also dramatic spectacle. It belongs with cent red on one-day matches. One means that the players, in tum, the theatre, ballet, opera and day cricket has a long and worthy have to find work during the dance." tradition within the history of the winter, and in small but growing It is also worth adding that one game. numbers they are travelling to day cricket as a form of spectacle The real threat to the stability England to play county and league and entertainment has a long and of international and Australian cricket during the northern respectable tradition going back to cricket remains South Africa. summer. the All-England Eleven, the first Strong rumours persist that This raises the question of professional touring team who another tour of South Africa will whether the playing abilities of travelled throughout Britain, from be announced in the near future, Australia's leading cricketers will 1846 onwards. Those professionals probably involving a party made be adversely affected; will the wore white shirts embellished with up of assorted mercenaries from demands of full-time red sports or stripes, coloured variou~ countries. Unfortunately, professionalism be too great? sashes or snake-clasp belts and an very few players, in virtually any Ironically Tony Greig, one of the assortment of hats. sport, are prepared to take a moral architects of World Series Cricket, The drab uniformity of the stance and reject apartheid. But if has recently argued against this professional cricketers' dress was, cricketers don't, the fate of growing professionalism and urged in part, a consequence of the international cricket, which that Australia should encourage its authorities desire to reassert their provides their livelihood, will hang players to remain part-time. With control over the professionals and in the balance. The division of the the continued commercialisation delineate the professionals as cricket world into black and whit of the game such a call is likely to second-class players in comparison playing nations remains a be ignored. to the exotically dressed amateurs possibility. The season recently completed of the so-called golden age prior to Ric Sissons will undoubtedly be considered a the First World War. Further, it success by the Australian Cricket can be noted that League cricket, RIC SISSONS is the author of Tilt Board and PBL marketing. At popular for almost a century in the Players: A Soc/41 History of tltt least Australia has produced a working-class Midlands and North Profeuiofllll Crklceter (Pluto Press~ 'winning' side at the international level, albeit in the conventional letter from ephebus f ram p9 test arena against opposition Pauhne Unsworth both emerged from for Governor General with a similar whose standard was not the the election with images enhanced. While ·chance of success. highest. The acid test will come Mrs. Unsworth has gradually won hearts On reflection, then, what influence over the next year with tours to simply because she's a decent sort of did television have on the NSW election? woman, Mrs. Greiner has had a rather It's very doubtful that the Labor Pakistan and England and a visit different road to media sanctity. advertising campaign did anything but from the West Indies. Not long ago, she mysteriously harm: if anyone is out of touch with the For the continued commercial escaped the full weight of opprobrium people it has to be John Singleton's and television success of cricket a and probing usually associated with a agency whose risible octopus and successful one-day side was vital. drink-driving charge and public profile. gruesome jingle set the ALP and the ad The team's achievements in this Whatever the merits or demerits of that industry back by at least a decade. regard have been widely and incident, her trial by public opinion poll The Liberals were low-key to the loudlv acclaimed. no doubt much in the election itself was, arguably, a point of ineffectuality, but then, with to chagrin of 'purists' such as more disturbing experience. It was also their rivals driving viewers from their sets th~ one of those occasions when the shooter in their droves, they didn't need to do former test player and journalist finds himself looking down the barrel of much other than not patronise. The Bill O'Reilly and ex-NSW Labor his own gun. If people had found Pilger footage of Hawke-Bond Packer at minister Rodney Cavalier. Kathryn Greiner uppity and a liability to the trough, on the other hand, was Provided the side keeps in Young Nick before the poll, their possibly the single most devastating winning (is it true that Australians sympathies had certainly swung in the party political broadcast of the decade. only love winners and battlers?), opposite direction by the time she'd But, all in all, what this election probably crowds pack the grounds and the finished looking longsuffering but proves is that Australia is still decades Channel 9 ratings remain strong, dignified and compassionate after TV behind the US when it comes to telly there will be no changes to the one reporters' gentle question sessions. politics. Neither Greiner nor Unsworth is dav t<mnula. I have to confess that Not since Lyndon B. Johnson a television performer and, unless picked up his pooch by its long floppy Greiner undergoes intensive I enjoy international one-day ears has public perception of an image psychotherapy during the parliamentary nif·ket and feel that the lights, changed so swiftly. On the day, Pauline recess, it is highly unlikely that he,! coloured clothing and fielding Unsworth and Kathryn Greiner could become one. restrictions enhance the occasion. easily have picked up a respectable On the other hand, Margaret As C.L.R. .James wrote in his number of votes; it's not unlikely that Thatcher was equally unpromising in classic Heyond A Boundary, Hazel Hawke could have handily stood 1979, and look what diligence did for her. .