This is how a rant should be written: Erudite, scathing, contemptuous, and vitriolic.
For posterity's sake, it is printed below:
"TRADITIONALISTS can relax. A month ago it seemed entirely possible that a form of cricket might soon spread that made the 20-over game seem sensible. A bunch of crocks whose best days were a distant memory signed up to burden an unsuspecting public with a sandy version of the game. Allan Border, Courtney Walsh and Graham Gooch led the way in promoting the activity in numerous advertisements. Viv Richards arrived to take part. Everyone was supposed to be excited about the innovation. Happily, it has been a debacle. Beach cricket has been beached.
It took only one crass exhibition on a blameless part of the Queensland coastline for the new game to be exposed as the most abysmal bilge presented in the name of sport. Seldom have so many supposedly dignified men been paid as much to participate in such nonsense, at least not whilst pursuing an activity asking to be taken seriously. Seldom has any new enterprise been as unanimously condemned. As a rule, reviewers try to give newcomers a little leeway. By general consent, though, five minutes' viewing on the small screen was enough to expose the unshakeable ridiculousness of this doomed sally.
In my case those precious, unrecoverable minutes were spent watching Mark Waugh and Dean Jones bowl with a soft ball and off short runs to padless opponents batting on an artificial surface located in the middle of the sort of white sand that so inconvenienced the Turks in their skirmish with Lawrence of Arabia. Meanwhile, Border was trotting dutifully behind the sticks, a mighty man wearing a red nose. The former captain resigned as a selector to join this embarrassment.
Whenever the ball was hit on the ground it became bogged and someone had to summon the interest to collect it. Otherwise it was dispatched into a bemused and dwindling crowd. All the while some poor fool of a commentator was trying to persuade his audience that they were watching proper cricket and not a group of cavorting pensioners. Beforehand, the responsible television channel had talked anxiously about forthcoming fitness tests. Afterwards, the same mob described the home side's victory in the triangular series as "continuing Australia's summer of success".
Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose were spotted "batting". Too many West Indians still expect the system to serve them. Too many want to lead the glamorous life when they could be serving the system. At least Brian Lara rejected the invitation. Not that England and Australia were short of past players eager for a payday. After the obsequious Warne interview and Herschelle Gibbs' recent excess, cricket needs all the dignity it can muster.
Ball sports do not work on sand. Beaches are for sleeping and reading and resting and digging holes and building castles and warming the body after a splash, a swim or a dive. Lots of sports have tried. Volleyball, soccer and footy have all attempted to corner the market. Some of them have become Olympic games, but that is a lady of notoriously easy virtue. None has captured the imagination. Participants invariably look like dills. No one who has watched these games properly played can tolerate these exhibitions. The surface is either too hard or too soft. Often the wind is blowing.
Of course the idea of staging official sports by the sea was tempting. Everyone can recall childhood games of beach cricket. Over the years memory has managed to repair the damage. A few cheerful recollections may intrude upon an otherwise bleak landscape, like the time that fearful brat Benjamin was run out and left in a sulk. Mostly they were horrendous, with most balls ending up as windswept wides and those within reach being missed and then another batsman comes jovially to the crease and all and sundry laugh and hide their boredom. Meanwhile, sand infiltrates the sandwiches, the tide goes out, everyone is burnt and it ends in tears. It is not an activity fit for human consumption.
Apparently this nonsense has been driven along by a grog company suffering a fit of pique after its sponsorship bid for a more legitimate form of the game was rejected. Shareholders must be spitting chips about the expense. Still, beer sales may rise. After watching a match, spectators can be relied upon to dash to the nearest bolthole to seek solace in a drop of the good stuff.
Sand and water have sporting glories of their own. Surf carnivals reflect the range of activities that have been developed over the years to give humans an opportunity to pit themselves against the maddened waters. Boats plunge into waves, lifesavers perform drills, swimmers rush in raging seas, ankle-biters charge for pegs, surfers stand on boards or try to catch the wind, canoes and other small craft race back and forth. And it all works because it is in harmony with the facilities.
Beach cricket is silly. May it suffer a surfeit of sorrows and then rest in peace."
