‘ooowwwzatttt
I read an article the other day that detailed the unsteady lurch of our national game into the scene of drunken debauchery greeting us every time we tune in. It highlighted that the game is now sizzled, sozzled, frazzled, bombed, blitzed, canned and caned. Citing Lord’s itself being advertised as ‘London’s best beer garden’ only sought to highlight that the opportunity to drink all day mattered far more to today’s punters than the quality of cricket on display. As was predicted the ground was packed, the weather beautiful and a mass, highly organised public inebriation followed. What was the result? Who cares, mine’s a pint.
But wasn’t it always thus? I remember attending Old Trafford tests in the mid 70s to see the Clive Lloyd’s Windies take Tony Grieg’s boys apart and fondly recall it being my first introduction to Red Stripe. Looking at the massed ranks of the West Indian supporters it perhaps wasn’t their first meeting with the evil brew! I’ve also known several half-decent cricketers and they were all, to a man, serious boozers. They made us squash boys look like the lightweights we really were. Indeed, when I used to waggle a piece of willow around in search of some contact with leather, of more concern than avoiding a goldie was the quality of lunch, tea and post match entertainment we would be served. And most of it was to be of a liquid nature.
The rational and coherent pre-drink argument is that cricket isn’t really much of a drinker’s game. In fact, when you’re three sheets to the wind, it becomes largely incomprehensible. Five day test cricket is a battle of subtlety and innuendo, of feign and foil, a game played in the clear mind and played in the long (term, not grass). Drunk, the combat of bat and ball remains elusive and unclear.
But, it has to be said, and admitted, that the booze has become prevalent and you don’t need to be Einstein to see where it’s come from. Twenty20 cricket has single-handedly upped the alcohol ante. This ‘pitch and slog’ version of the great game has removed all need to remain sober. A skin full, a hatful of sixes and a finish to the death are the over-riding concerns, and in exactly that order. Hunched within its floodlit new-build stadia, English Cricket is not so much in bed with the booze business as sweatily intertwined with it on the back stairs.
