Cricket: SOS for a weather-beaten game

The MCG - Ashes contestants missing in action, kept to their dressing- rooms for most of Boxing Day by a drizzle of rain so gentle that even a hypochondriac would think twice about raising an umbrella - instantly provided a forum for some reflections on the game.

We praise the technocrats for giving us light-meters and floodlighting to cope with poor light and the super-sopper roller that quick-dries outfields, but still our big cricket grounds lack a retractable or temporary roof device that will allow play to proceed on a wet day.

In the case of the MCG this was not just any wet day, but a wet Boxing Day, arguably the biggest pay day in Australian cricket. The first day of this Fourth Test, where a win would at least give England the chance of squaring the series, was expected to draw a crowd of 70,000 paying about a million dollars. Instead it was every marketing man's nightmare: "bums on wet seats", watching puddles grow, an announcement that play would start an hour earlier on day two and a reminder that Boxing Day buffs could get their ticket money back.

Is there any other sport where the public is offered such a rotten alternative to the main event? I'll concede sliding roofs are unoriginal and, furthermore, the 11th commandment states categorically that glum accountants shall always have the last words, which in this case would be "not cost effective". Consider a more lateral thought. Why can't we start a Test match in doubtful weather? Why can't we play "wet cricket"? Footballers seem able to cope so why not cricketers? Is it just a case of another worn-out seasonal tradition?

Naturally, it couldn't be rain of the Gabba's thunder-and-lightning intensity, but gentle rain whose status is measured by a super-sensitive gauge. Technology has already given players poly-coated bats, why can't it give them an all- weather cricket ball?

We cover pitches to keep them dry, so why can't we dress players in "plastic- whites" to keep them dry? Footballers have different shoe spikes for the wet, why not cricketers? And would not weather- impaired pitches be an exciting prospect for those keen to see a return to uncovered pitches? Is it only the mischievous spectator who longs for the day when the modern player is asked to cope with the same soft, unpredictable and testing surfaces that sorely tried Trumper, Bradman and Hutton?

Of course, the majority of fans might prefer to sit in misery and wait for perfect conditions rather than suffer wet cricket. Let's face it, Shane Warne coping with a slippery ball mightn't be worth watching. Anyway, why be depressed by the sight of a cricket pitch square camouflaged by sheets of white plastic as if it were an artwork by Christo when in Pakistan spectators and players have been frustrated by fog? How did the bookies cope with that, or have the ICC thought of giant heating fans?

Idle thoughts, peculiar even. If yesterday's watercolour of the MCG raised the usual questions about cricket's interminable battle with the weather it also reminded me of a dressing-room conversation I was party to between a coach and an Australian cricketer who recently spent time with an English county side.

Dressing-room talk can sometimes be as cheap as a Bill Clinton promise to tell the whole truth, but this exchange was couched in serious terms, the discussion topic being the worth of his stint in England. If he had replied in dollar terms, I'd not have been surprised. Today's cricketers have earned a reputation as a mercenary lot.

That's not to say they don't deserve a salary, it's just that some of them are letting the money get in the way of the main game - making sure the future of cricket is solid. The player's response should be useful to those puzzling over England's failure to match Australia's toughness this Ashes series. He said: "We spend a lot of time sitting in the dressing- room hoping it rains."

It says something about attitude. Today, even though Alec Stewart again lost a toss worth winning, England would have preferred that the rain disappear. Taylor's tactic to grant his bowlers any life in a first-day MCG pitch would have been compromised by a wet ball.

England's altered team balance should be mentioned, too. Selection pre- tour can sometimes be overtaken by events, so now Warren Hegg is the wicketkeeper to relieve the pressure on Stewart, and Graeme Hick is the off-spinner to tie up an end.

England's plan to win back the Ashes was worthy: the Illingworth encore, pace strikers with stingy, off-spin back-up. The choice of the wayward optimists, Croft and Such, was flawed and the pace attack was forever being blunted by costly dropped catches when hot days grew longer - the very first day of the series at the Gabba set the pace.