Wasn't the cricket amazing yesterday? Not the game, or even the result, but watching other people in the office's reactions to it...
Some people were finding it very difficult to concentrate on work yesterday. Come 10:30 and they started looking distracted, even disturbed, as they came to terms with not being able to watch the conclusion of England's Ashes challenge. Typical - a fortnight ago they were all ready to spend their bank holiday watching the end of the Fourth Test but it finished a day early, and today they were trapped at work when the Fifth dragged on to the final Monday. Thank goodness for the internet. Before long they were suffering from Repetitive Refresh Syndrome, checking up on the latest score at increasingly frequent intervals, just in case. Would the next online update reveal sought-after runs or a fallen wicket? A depressed murmur spread around the office upon each dismissal, led by the surfer monitoring the most on-the-ball website, and the outlook blackened as consecutive wickets began a rapid tumble. To some of my more pessimistic colleagues this was surefire evidence that our national team was about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, again.
After lunch the armchair pontification continued. Discussion concentrated on leg spin bowling, over rates, the probability of rain, the consequences of a lower order batting collapse, and oh bugger we've just lost another one. Some newly-converted fans began to display their lack of in-depth knowledge of the game (erm, exactly when is tea, actually?). And even those with no previous interest whatsoever felt compelled to enquire how the game was proceeding, not that an answer of '206 for 7' meant anything to them because cricket isn't a game you can explain in a couple of minutes. One particularly unfortunate manager, a true Test addict, was gutted to discover that a particularly important meeting had been scheduled during the late afternoon, severing his online lifeline to the developing pitched battle. For others the tension was all too much and they scuttled off home during the tea break to soak up the tension of the closing overs in front of a television screen.
I hope they made the most of tonight's final on-screen experience because watching live test cricket on television is about to become a restricted practice, exclusive only to those signed up with Rupert Murdoch's premium satellite services. When the Ashes are next fought on home soil the majority of supporters will have to content themselves with the radio commentary, or ball-by-ball web updates, or even watching the numbers change on Ceefax. Sure there'll be some delayed terrestrial TV highlights in the early evening, but where's the tension in that? My congratulations to the English Cricket Board on their recent multi-million pound broadcasting deal, which I'm sure will boost the coffers of a beleaguered sporting organisation. But I hope the ECB won't despair when a new generation of children grow up never having watched a test match and choose instead to become fans of football, athletics or even baseball.
Oh and we drew, by the way, so we won some crematedwood. I think. It's all so bloody complicated.
