There has been a groundswell of online support – tweets and the like – to rush David Warner back into the third test tomorrow. Just consider that sentence for a moment before continuing with this article.
Unlike many cricket fans nostalgic for success against the ‘Old Enemy’, I’m concerned that the selectors, in their haste for instant success, will rush Warner back in to replace seasoned opener Chris Rogers – who has been given just two tests to prove he has what it takes to single-handedly negate a rampant English bowling attack as his fellow top order batsmen fail miserably around him.
A lot has been made of Rogers’ age – he’s 36 – and that we must “look to the future” when selecting the Australian cricket team. This is simply shit logic, not to mention ageist, and disregards the fact that cricket is not necessarily a young man’s game, despite what they’ll have you believe.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, men in their early 20s were not cunts more mature than they are now. That’s irrefutable. The rise of reality TV, social media and T20 cricket – all avenues to instant fame – was still decades away. Therefore, against this backdrop, players learned the true value of grafting out innings of substance,”earning their stripes” and forging a test career.
Rogers is from this era. No one else in the Australian cricket team is. We need this final vestige of yesteryear if we are to prosper.
Test cricket, proper and pure, is anathema to everything about the mentally lazy 21st century society. A large proportion of Australians are now upwardly mobile yet unsure what to do with their sudden wealth. We drift aimlessly between careers and relationships, but lack the application to truly understand why we do so. Those who do have a “solid” career, “significant other” and a “nice” house remain unsatisfied; a growing dissatisfaction lurks beneath, irrepressibly.
Rogers is proven. He has amassed a veritable fuck-ton of runs – so let him play! He may be 36-years-old, but look past the bookish glasses, melanoma-prone skin and date of birth, and you’ll see that Rogers is also a metaphor. A final link to a forgone era where men were men and Twitter/Facebook were just silly fake words yet to be invented.
Sure, they’ll probably pick Dave Warner to open with Shane Watson. And they may blast a 300 run opening partnership in the third test by tea on the first day. But it won’t have the same galvanising effect that a staunch 86*at stumps would have on the team.
Give me Rogers. Give me staunch, unattractive cricket that will make the viewers turn off in droves. In this grotesque era of million-dollar IPL contracts, 300% T20 strike rates and Tweeting fucktards, we need simplicity. We need to be annoyed by slow run scoring and dour batting, basically, for our own good as well as that of the Australian cricket team.
Fuck Bürgen® Soy-Lin® bread; I want WonderWhite.
By Dave Edwards