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Cricket as an art form

pasag

RTDAS
You see from time to time people saying that the only important thing in cricket is runs and wickets, that entertainment is of lesser importance and at the end of the day the result is all that matters. But do these people miss the beauty in the game, the fine subtleties that don't come across in the scoreboard and in the results? If cricket was only about the result would anyone really care? And how is it different from every other sport out there if it is?

I think it's a fine balance in the overall perspective of things and hold both in quite high value, but what do others think and what do you value first and foremost in cricket?
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
The result and the multiple outcomes isn't, obviously, all that counts, at all - otherwise the only people who'd need to watch are the scorers. But the attractiveness of stroke or bowling-action is a hell of a lot about what holds pretty much everyone to the game - certainly is for myself. While I like good-quality cricket (sometimes in opposition to attractive cricket) I also like, very much so, a good cover-drive and a perfect bowling-action resulting in the curving outswinger, and a looping, drifting, massive-spinning delivery. And all those other things.

However, a player cannot worry about how good he looks, really - his efforts, if not 100% then 97 or 98, must be chanelled into scoring as many runs, conceding as few runs and taking as many wickets, as possible.







Oh yeah... and taking as many catches too. (H)
 

burr

State Vice-Captain
Oooh, I love this topic, mainly because I just started reading Beyond a Boundary and in it James makes an attempt to argue that cricket should be seen as an art form - alongside painting and music. It's very interesting, and as Brearley points out in his forward, controversial.

I've always thought of cricket as art - it's why I love the game. While I love a close match as much as the next person, what I personally value the most is the subtleties in the game. For example, how you can have two players play the same shot - a cover drive perhaps - yet the difference between those shots can be as stark as night and day. And how each ball can be its own beautiful little drama, for example when Warne was bowling to the Englishmen in the Adelaide test last year. I’m particularly interested in the aesthetics of batsmanship. It's why Martyn's my favourite player because he made me realise cricket’s a game of style which can’t be taught, is something immeasurable and won't show up in any record books that talk only of averages and win/loss records.

I think the subtleties and nuances of test cricket (and cricket as art only applies to test cricket) are what makes this game the greatest of games, and why I personally love it so much :)
 

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Oooh, I love this topic, mainly because I just started reading Beyond a Boundary and in it James makes an attempt to argue that cricket should be seen as an art form - alongside painting and music. It's very interesting, and as Brearley points out in his forward, controversial.

I've always thought of cricket as art - it's why I love the game. While I love a close match as much as the next person, what I personally value the most is the subtleties in the game. For example, how you can have two players play the same shot - a cover drive perhaps - yet the difference between those shots can be as stark as night and day. And how each ball can be its own beautiful little drama, for example when Warne was bowling to the Englishmen in the Adelaide test last year. I’m particularly interested in the aesthetics of batsmanship. It's why Martyn's my favourite player because he made me realise cricket’s a game of style which can’t be taught, is something immeasurable and won't show up in any record books that talk only of averages and win/loss records.

I think the subtleties and nuances of test cricket (and cricket as art only applies to test cricket) are what makes this game the greatest of games, and why I personally love it so much :)
:notworthy

Post of the week.
 

Mister Wright

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Tbh, I don't really care about a result. My priorities run in the following order (for test cricket):

Matthew Hayden
Queenslanders do well
Contest
Australia wins

So basically if it is a dead contest because Matthew Hayden or other Queenslanders have done well, It's not all that of a big concern to me, but I would rather see a contest than Australia win any time a cricket match is played. Am getting sick of the one-sided games tbh. However, because Hayden is such a gun these days, don't mind if he fails to make it a contest as much as before.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
I dont see it as an art form.

Its more a strategic battle of wills between 2 people that have completely seperate aims, ie the batsman and the bowler.

The aim is to subjugate your opponent.

I dont overly care how a dashing Mark Waugh, a cover driving Vaughan, a tweaking Bedi, a flightling Tufnell etc looks. It adds to the game but isnt that important.

Far more interested in the mental aspects of the game than the aesthetics.

Real cricket is like trench warfare for me where neither side will give an inch and the game is brutally tough.

Thats why the 2005 Ashes were so impressive. As I mentined in my thread, the series was very tough cricket and the big personalities stood up to be counted (McGrath, Warne, Flintoff etc)
 

nightprowler10

Global Moderator
Well let's see, Pakistan are very likely to lose this match yet I can't stop watching Sachin play. Not sure what that says.

I'd say cricket is a game of chess, only played more artistically, if that makes any sense.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Very good thread, I definately see Cricket as an art form with Wasim Akram and Shane Warne as the Michaelangelos of this art. When I say 'Cricket is an art', it doesn't mean I am only talking about the flashy styles of a Mark Waugh or Wristy touch of VVS, it is also about the contest itself, the contest between bowlers and batsmen is an art too, something you dont often see in any other game.
 
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Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
Very good thread, I definately see Cricket as an art form with Wasim Akram and Shane Warne as the Michaelangelos of this art. When I say 'Cricket is an art', it doesn't mean I am only talking about the flashy styles of a Mark Waugh or Wristy touch of VVS, it is also about the contest itself, the contest between bowlers and batsmen is an art too, something you done aften see in any other game.
Yep, agree with every word.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
Sanz makes a good point. Martyn, Laxman, Warne and Murali are artists just as much as Dravid, Kallis, McGrath and Pollock. You can be flashy and very attractive, or you can be orthodox and very attractive.

Mind you, a player who is not attractive to watch at all (I don't like watching Collingwood bat in tests for eg.) should never be NOT selected because they are less attractive to watch, or 'less of an artist' if you will, than someone who is more attractive to watch, may please the fans more, but is crapper.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
It's an interesting topic, no doubt. One of the joys of the sport (for me) is the very time it takes to unfold. The other team sports I follow (both codes of rugby and football) one inhabits for an intense two hours (give or take), part of the spectators' experience is the build up, the anticipation and then the post-mortem afterwards. One equally gets these with the cricket, but the whole game lives and breathes over up to five days. It pulses, ebbs and flows; there are battles within battles and the players leave the pitch at the end of a day's play with the result still in the balance.

Ultimately all team sports are result orientated, but the journey is just as important for me. Take the second test of the 2005 Ashes. It went literally to the last ball of the game. England won, the Australians where defeated, but in cases like these surely not all the spoils go to the victors? The most iconic image of the whole summer was Flintoff resting a hand on the beaten, but brave and unbowed, Brett Lee's shoulder. Magnanimous and very human; one athlete's respect for another. Great sportsmen are defined as much by their opponents and by the manner of their victories. Had England won with (to borrow Colin Welland's phrase from Chariots of Fire) the apparent effortlessness of gods the game would not have ascended to (IMHO) one of the greatest tests ever.
 

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
You see from time to time people saying that the only important thing in cricket is runs and wickets, that entertainment is of lesser importance and at the end of the day the result is all that matters. But do these people miss the beauty in the game, the fine subtleties that don't come across in the scoreboard and in the results? If cricket was only about the result would anyone really care? And how is it different from every other sport out there if it is?
Huh? No one misses the subtleties. Why do people continuously confuse what it takes to win vs. what I like watching? I love watching a four fast bowler combo running through lineups, but I can concede that a spinner is sometimes required to win.

See the difference?
 

neville cardus

International Debutant
It's not as it used to be, is it? I'm hard-pressed to call to mind the last time I read a lustrous appreciation of cricket's artistic and visual splendour by any contemporary scribe.

Granted, cricket writers are not of the awesome standard of yore, but one hardly needs a Bard-like endowment with the pen to be acutely stirred and moved to comment on the game's intrinsic loveliness. It's difficult to put one's finger on the reason for this tragic dearth.

Our Carduses, Ryders, Easts, Crusoes, Fingletons, Rosses, Arlotts, Gibsons, Robinsons, Barkers, Peebleses, Frys, Jameses, Swantons and Thomsons have all sheathed their illustrious pens, and in their collective stead has swept a sullen wave of empty numbers. Stats are all but all that matters nowadays.
 
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silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
It's not as it used to be, is it? I'm hard-pressed to call to mind the last time I read a lustrous appreciation of cricket's artistic and visual splendour by any contemporary scribe.

Granted, cricket writers are not of the awesome standard of yore, but one hardly needs a Bard-like endowment with the pen to be acutely stirred and moved to comment on the game's intrinsic loveliness. It's difficult to put one's finger on the reason for this tragic dearth.

Our Carduses, Ryders, Easts, Crusoes, Fingletons, Rosses, Arlotts, Gibsons, Robinsons, Barkers, Peebleses, Frys, Jameses, Swantons and Thomsons have all sheathed their illustrious pens, and in their collective stead has swept a sullen wave of empty numbers. Stats are all but all that matters nowadays.
Except you continuously confuse the love of the game and enjoying the spectacle of the game which (contrary to Pasag or your beliefs) is enjoyed by all, versus evaluating a player's abilities in an objective manner on which people disagree.

The 'woe is my appreciation for the love of the game' because it has been taken over by stats is tiresome and blatantly false.
 

neville cardus

International Debutant
Except you continuously confuse the love of the game
Interesting. I can't remember getting all flowery about prettiness on here before. Links?

and enjoying the spectacle of the game which (contrary to Pasag or your beliefs) is enjoyed by all, versus evaluating a player's abilities in an objective manner on which people disagree.
How you were able to glean that presumptuous notion from my post is quite beyond me. If the spectacle was of no importance, the game would not survive in this narrow-minded day and age. I recognise quite clearly the difference -- even more so now that one has markedly increased its popular ascendancy over the other.

The 'woe is my appreciation for the love of the game' because it has been taken over by stats is tiresome and blatantly false.
It is patently you who is confusing things. I was referring to looks, not love.
 

neville cardus

International Debutant
Splitting hairs there.
Nope. I am defending myself, rejoining those hairs which you split.

One can appreciate the look of a cricketer (Darren Ganga) while at the same time looking at facts (wickets and runs) and realizing that he is a rubbish player.
Of course. My point is that the look of a cricketer means far less these days than it used to, while "facts" mean far more. What are you arguing?
 

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