Sticky wickets
Sticky Wickets
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about current changes in our leisure.
More and more of our free time now
involves consumption, and culture
industries are the major providers in
this area. Culture industries employ
large numbers of people and their
economic significance is growing.
So, too, is their cultural impact: the
manufacture of experience shows
how difficult it is to assume that
pleasure or fun are purely
spontaneous or individually based.
More and more, these sorts of
experiences are produced by
industries organised for pleasure.
This is not to say that the
consumption of leisure makes us
passive puppets, easily manipulated
into laughing in all the right places.
While the production of pleasure at
Wonderland may be extremely
disciplined, the consumption of it is
much harder to control. Individual
consumers at Wonderland use the
place in different ways, and bring
their own meanings to bear on the
experiences and the pleasures it
offers.
Gay Hawkins
GAY HAWKINS teaches in Leisure
Studies at Kurinc-&al CAE in Sydney.
hat is the future of first
W class and international
cricket 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
the 'restraint of trade' court action
won by Tony Greig and other and
World Series Cricket in the
English High Court was one
crudal factor in changing the
working conditions of cricket
professionals. After that landmark
decision cricketers were free to se11
their labour, like any other
workers, to the highest bidder. The
second decisive influence has been
the growing strength of the
Cricketers' Association which
organises all first-class
professionals in England and
self-organisation. The important
point is that in Australia the game
is becoming more professional and
will continue to do so over the next
few years. Lt>ading state and test
cricketers increasingly view cricket
as their profession. Indeed, the
demands of Sheffield Shield and
international cricket make that
inevitable. Moreover, this also
means that the players, in tum,
have to find work during the
winter, and in small but growing
numbers they are travelling to
England to play county and league
cricket during the northern
summer.
This raises the question of
whether the playing abilities of
Australia's leading cricketers will
be adversely affected; will the
demands of full-time
professionalism be too great?
Ironically Tony Greig, one of the
architects of World Series Cricket,
has recently argued against this
growing professionalism and urged
that Australia should encourage its
players to remain part-time. With
the continued commercialisation
of the game such a call is likely to
be ignored.
The season recently completed
will undoubtedly be considered a
success by the Australian Cricket
Board and PBL marketing. At
least Australia has produced a
'winning' side at the international
level, albeit in the conventional
test arena against opposition
whose standard was not the
highest. The acid test will come
over the next year with tours to
Pakistan and England and a visit
from the West Indies.
For the continued commercial
and television success of cricket a
successful one-day side was vital.
The team's achievements in this
regard have been widely and
loudlv acclaimed. no doubt much
to th~ chagrin of 'purists' such as
former test player and journalist
Bill O'Reilly and ex-NSW Labor
minister Rodney Cavalier.
Provided the side keeps in
winning (is it true that Australians
only love winners and battlers?),
crowds pack the grounds and the
Channel 9 ratings remain strong,
there will be no changes to the one
dav t<mnula. I have to confess that
I enjoy international one-day
nif·ket and feel that the lights,
coloured clothing and fielding
restrictions enhance the occasion.
As C.L.R. .James wrote in his
classic Heyond A Boundary,
"Cricket is first and foremost a
dramatic spectacle. It belongs with
the theatre, ballet, opera and
dance."
It is also worth adding that one
day cricket as a form of spectacle
and entertainment has a long and
respectable tradition going back to
the All-England Eleven, the first
professional touring team who
travelled throughout Britain, from
1846 onwards. Those professionals
wore white shirts embellished with
red sports or stripes, coloured
sashes or (...truncated)