Читать книгу No Win Race. A Story of Belonging, Britishness and Sport онлайн

68 страница из 87

In the first meeting between England and the West Indies that summer, a one-day international match at Old Trafford, Richards set the tone. He hit a then record 189 not out off 170 balls in what had been considered the greatest one-day batting performance in the history of the sport. But the one-day games had only been warm-up matches, starters. The main course would be the Test series.

Test cricket. Two teams. Five days. Two chances for each team to score the most runs. Team game. But a sequence of one-on-one challenges, bowler versus batsman. Difficult to follow all the way through. Long. Too long for even the most rational sports fan to follow. But surely one of the greatest of tests for any sportsman. Batting. Bowling. Fielding. Tactics. Weather. Violent weather. Control. Uncontrol. Beyond control. Pitches can dictate, be it hard, cracked, flat, great for batting, bad for bowling, bad for batting, great for bowling. It can all change from day to day. Momentum swings. Swinging all the time. Need for concentration, patience. Need your team, need all eleven men. Tuned in. Tuned on. Ready to battle, ready to roll, to play their role.