Dear Cricket Australia,

Cricket has been a massive part of my life.  I love the game.  As a child I played whenever and wherever I could.  At 13 I attended my first Ashes Test, at the Oval in 1977, when Ian Botham made his debut.  As a teenager I would lie in bed in the middle of the night, listening to TMS commentary on matches from the SCG, the MCG, the WACA and other Australian grounds.  Visiting the SCG on Saturday was almost a pilgrimage, a visit to a sacred place.

For most, if not all of my adult life, Australia were the world’s best cricket team and it appeared as if its cricket administrators were the best, too.  Australia produced great cricketer after great cricketer, as if it did, actually, have a production line.  In 2005 your dominance over England was broken but the impression that you knew what you were doing continued.  As T20 cricket grew in importance, you developed the Big Bash.  The Indian Premier League may be an extraordinary phenomenon, driven by the vast TV money available for cricket in India but the BBL was, it seemed, the model T20 competition.  A better standard than the IPL, world class international players, great TV coverage and packed stadiums.  Even the ever so conservative English Cricket Board is considering copying your city based structure.

I’m lucky enough that my sons all, to a greater or lesser extent, share my love of cricket.  When looking to buy souvenirs of my time in your great country, one of them suggested that he would like a Sydney Sixers shirt (for the unitiated, the Sixers are one of two BBL franchises based in Sydney).  I was visiting the team store at the Allianz Stadium, immediately next door to the SCG, to buy a rugby T-Shirt.  The store has shirts and memorabilia from each of the Waratahs (rugby union), Roosters (rugby league) and Sydney FC.  It also had shirts for the Swans, who play at the SCG.  Sadly, no cricket stuff.  Nor is there a store attached to the SCG.  I was, it was suggested, better to try a store in the city.  The first store I was sent to had wall to wall replica shirts, of every sport you could imagine.  But no cricket stuff.  I could, sadly, have bought an Arsenal AFC shirt but no Sydney Sixers.  The same story at another store, though they would, I was told, be getting Sixers stuff in “nearer Christmas”.  That store did, it is fair to say, have a couple of Australian Cricket team tops on sale, and a fairly horrid flat billed Sixers cap.

The Big Bash is a great success.  Why is it so bloody difficult to buy a top and put money in your coffers?  Oh, and while I’m at it, that whole Mitch Marsh at number six thing?  It was very funny for a while but now even the English would prefer you picked a proper cricketer.

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